


The Cruise Line Caper

by ThereBeWhalesHere



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Anal Sex, Awkward Sexual Situations, Bottom Hank, Bottom Hank Anderson, Canon Compliant, Case Fic, Coitus Interruptus, Connor Is Hot and Bothered By It, Connor's Competency Kink, Cruise Ships, Established Relationship, Fluff, Fluff and Smut, Hank is Good at His Job, Honeymoon, M/M, Original Character(s), Post-Peaceful Android Revolution (Detroit: Become Human), Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-30
Updated: 2019-08-30
Packaged: 2020-09-30 10:28:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 45,349
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20445644
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThereBeWhalesHere/pseuds/ThereBeWhalesHere
Summary: Newlyweds Hank and Connor have booked a luxurious, seven-day cruise through the Caribbean for their honeymoon, and they're both excited to expose Connor to some new experiences and enjoy their first week as a married couple. But when they encounter a strange android with memory problems and assailants on her tail, they put aside their honeymoon to do what they do best: work a case, solve a mystery and save an innocent.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> AT LAST IT IS HERE! The HankCon Reverse Big Bang, lovingly orchestrated by Anifanatical ([Twitter](https://twitter.com/anifanatical), [Tumblr](https://anifanatical.tumblr.com/)), who I was also lucky enough to snag as my partner!
> 
> Ani's amazing art (embedded in the fic and available on Twitter [here](https://twitter.com/anifanatical/status/1167422204914671616), y'all better retweet this glory [eyes emoji]) inspired this story, and then they went and made MORE OF IT. So THANK YOU Ani! (Also for all the help with the story, and the title!!) It has been such a delight and pleasure to work with an artist I've admired for so long! <3
> 
> Also, special thanks to my wife who read this over for me! Smooches!
> 
> Please check out all the HCRBB works in the directory here: https://hankconrbb.wordpress.com/

art by [Anifanatical](https://twitter.com/anifanatical)

A blue sky stretched in all directions, speckled only by brief streaks of jet trials and the white dots of swirling gulls, their cries carrying across the air. Even loud as the ship’s main deck had become with all the passengers crowding up against the rails — waving to the far-off dock as if anyone could still see them nearly a mile from shore — Hank could still hear the gulls calling. 

Beneath the surging ship, the massive, seething presence of the ocean roared. Around him, the warm air of a Florida summer closed in, heavy and wet. Salt stung his nose as Hank breathed in deep, eyes falling closed against the sight of blue, blue blue. Blue above and below and blue shining beside him from the LED at Connor’s temple.

Connor pressed close to Hank’s side, either jostled by the other passengers or simply gluing himself to Hank’s side because he wanted to, and Hank tightened his hold on Connor’s hand. The cool band of gold around Hank’s finger felt a bright reminder of why they were here.

“It’s beautiful,” Connor said quietly. Hank cracked open his eyes and grinned at the sight of him. Connor wore a smile as bright and intoxicating as the butter glow of the sun, his wide, straw sun hat rippling in the wind as the ship carved its path into the water far below. 

“Prettiest sight I ever saw,” Hank said, and Connor glanced to him, his smile curling into an endearing smirk. The expression wrinkled his nose, and Hank could’ve kissed him right there.

“You know you don’t have to flatter me anymore. I’m already yours,” Connor said, as if it were that simple. Hank would never have been content with the idea of Connor belonging to him, unless he could give himself to Connor in turn.  _ I’m yours too _ , Hank didn’t say.

Instead: “I’ll flatter you much as I damn please.” Hank laughed as he pulled away, leaning his elbows on the railing and letting the wind whip his hair. “Gotta do something to keep you around.” This was added almost as an afterthought, but Connor didn’t miss it. Didn’t miss anything, that one.

“You couldn’t get rid of me if you tried,” Connor grinned. He settled his elbows next to Hank’s, leaning close to him. Like this, they were almost in their own little world, though they were far from alone. The deck bustled with couples and families; small children Hank recognized as YK500 models running around deck with human children in their light-up sneakers, a grumpy human couple nearby bickering silently under their breath, a PL600 holding the hand of a woman to their left, kissing her knuckles gently as they laughed over some private joke, an HR400 and a WR400 kissing in the warm breeze on their other side. Hank could identify almost every android on sight anymore, after more than a year on the android crimes task force. But they weren’t just model numbers to him anymore. They were people, celebrating and vacationing and living their lives however they lived them. 

Just like he and Connor.

Hank nudged Connor’s shoulder, giving him a mischievous little smile. “You wanna go to the bow of the boat and play Titanic?”

Connor’s eyebrows shot up. “I don’t want anything about our honeymoon to look like the Titanic.”

Hank snorted. “I was talking about the movie. You know, Kate Winslet, Leonardo DiCaprio...” he held out his arms as if to illustrate. Connor had never seen  _ Titanic _ , but it took him only an instant to look it up. His LED cycled yellow and his eyes blew open wide. “As if that’s any better! He  _ dies _ , Hank.” 

Hand on his belly, Hank laughed something loud and booming that he would’ve been embarrassed about a year ago, when he thought he had to keep every emotion on lockdown like the machines he hated. “Alright, alright, no  _ Titanic _ then. What  _ do _ you want our honeymoon to look like?”

Connor seemed to consider the question, nudging up against Hank’s elbow with his own. He found Hank’s hand and stroked Hank’s knuckles with a delicate fingertip. When Hank looked back to his eyes, there was a glint in them that he’d come to adore. 

“Like the inside of our cabin, mostly,” Connor answered. His lips quirked. “I hardly plan to let you leave the bed, Mr. Anderson.” 

Hank  _ could _ blame the heat for the sudden flush that overtook his cheeks, but there was little point in pretending. He laughed, glancing away if only to preserve a bit of his pride.

“I think I can get behind that idea, Mr. Anderson.” 

Connor beamed, taking Hank’s arm and pulling it close to him, nuzzling against Hank’s shoulder. The side of Connor’s smile pressed against his sleeve. 

“Mr. Anderson.” The whisper carried itself away on the sea breeze rushing past, but Hank felt Connor’s lips form the words. 

Mr. Anderson. His husband. He laid his head against Connor’s, breathed in the salt scent of his hair and smiled.

* * *

Connor had only been kidding about spending the  _ entire _ cruise in their cabin, but as the hours wore on, he did find himself more anxious to at least spend  _ some  _ time there. They’d barely dropped off their bags before the schedule of cruise activities had kicked into full gear, and he found himself torn between the greater of two goods — experiencing every new sensation the sea air and press of people could offer him, and making love to his husband in the privacy of their luxury room. 

It was a much nicer set of choices than those he had been born into. 

He spent some time holding Hank’s hand as they strolled along the decks, getting the lay of the land; the wave pool and the ice rink and the dozens of stores and restaurants. There were 15 decks total open to the public, most of them residential, and Hank had ensured that they got a room close to the top of the ship. 

The main deck, where they could stare out over the water and enjoy the biggest of the ship’s five pools, was only a five-minute walk away, through a couple garishly decorated corridors, around a few corners and into the ship’s impressive atrium. Connor didn’t much care for the atrium. It was like the nexus around which the rest of the ship orbited, with hallways branching off it in all directions like a spiderweb, and escalators leading up to the buffet and the main deck — not to mention the fountain and greenery that made it smell like a rainforest. Something about it reminded him of the main hall in Cyberlife Tower.

He didn’t tell Hank as much, simply led him a little faster along each time they passed through it. But Hank likely knew that it made Connor uncomfortable. Hank always knew. He knew to avoid snowstorms, roses, any symbol that so much as resembled a blue triangle.

So they never lingered long in this nexus, simply walked on, explored, and enjoyed each other. Not quite the way Connor was  _ more  _ than ready for them to enjoy each other, however. 

By the time they made their way to the ballroom for the cruise’s special welcome dinner, he was already looking forward to when the captain’s remarks would be over and they could finally retreat to their room.

It was mostly Hank’s fault, Connor deduced. After all, Hank had decided to wear his flamingo-patterned shirt unbuttoned to the top of his chest tattoo, decided to pull his hair back into a ponytail, decided to smile at Connor across their tiny cabaret table like he was the only thing that existed. The dress code for the welcome dinner had read ‘formal’ in the cruise brochure, but Hank lived by his own dress code, and Connor loved him for it. 

If Connor’s LED flickered yellow throughout the dinner, if his fingers twitched with the itch to touch Hank in ways that were far too inappropriate for public, or if he spent more time staring at his husband than at the stage where the captain yielded the floor to a sultry jazz singer and her piano, it was definitely mostly at least somewhat Hank’s fault.

“You’re blinking,” Hank noted partway into the musician’s set, tilting his glass of sparkling water at Connor’s LED. “What’s on your mind, Con?”

“Just thinking,” Connor said. He reached across the table and took Hank’s hand, an absent kind of gesture. Stroking Hank’s knuckles and tugging gently at his fingertips felt even more soothing than twirling his coin ever had. 

“About?”

“I just love you,” Connor said, somewhat evasively. Hank likely knew he was thinking about a lot more than that.

But Hank smiled warm and wide and gap-toothed anyway, and gripped Connor’s hand tighter. “I love you too. Glad we’re not like some of these couples.” He nodded over Connor’s shoulder, and Connor turned to a table near their own, where a familiar couple sat. 

They were both human as far as Connor could tell. The man tall, pale and strawberry blonde, broad as a barn with a cut jaw like an army recruitment poster. The woman: petit and dark-skinned, the poof of her black hair adding a good few inches to her height. Even still, she was barely tall enough to reach the man’s shoulder. Both of them wore impressive scowls as their eyes scanned the ballroom in obvious discomfort.

“It looks like they’re looking for an escape route,” Connor laughed, turning back to his husband and rubbing his thumb over Hank’s.

“They aren’t gonna find one out here, unless they’re ready to take a long swim.”

“The wife looks like she’s considering it,” Connor joked, and Hank snorted, shaking his head.

“Well I for one am fucking delighted we’re in the middle of nowhere, you and me.”

Connor tilted his smile downward, an expression likely too coy to fool Hank. “Though it is a rather crowded cruise,” he said. “Maybe we could find ourselves some privacy?” Lifting his eyes, he met Hank’s — gleaming bright in the dim ballroom light.

“Impatient, much?” Hank chastised gently. “You know we’ve got seven days on this boat. Seven whole days. Nothing but the sea and sand and you and me.” 

Seven days had once felt like a long time to Connor. Merely a year ago, he’d fallen in love with Hank in less time than that. But now it felt far too short. He shifted, taking Hank’s hand with both of his as Hank set his drink on the table. “We could just get off the ship at our first port,” Connor suggested. “Run away together.” 

With a little snort, Hank laid his other hand over Connor’s. “We’d miss Sumo too much, and you know it. And it’s not like you’d ever give up work. Now me, I can’t wait to spend a week not thinking about murders and robberies and whatever-the-fuck else. You’ll go crazy in a day.” 

“Not with other activities to occupy my time,” Connor offered, his eyes falling to their clasped hands, then lifting to meet Hank’s once more. Under the table, he found Hank’s foot and nudged it gently. If Hank’s large hand weren’t covering his own, Hank would see the skin dappling away from Connor’s fingertips, the unconscious way Connor always reached out when he wanted to be closer than skin ever allowed.

And bless Hank — he was great at reading people, and better at reading Connor. His lips tilted in a sweet little smile.

“Are you done with your meal, Hank?” Connor asked. 

The warm laugh that rumbled from Hank’s chest made Connor’s own chest clench — his pump stuttering over its functions in a way that only ever happened when Hank showed off the gap between his teeth. “I sure as hell am now,” Hank said. His hand tightened over Connor’s. “I think my husband might be waiting on me.”

“Oh, what gave you that idea?” Connor asked, his smile spreading. Hank’s blue eyes crinkled.

  
  
“I’m a  _ very _ good detective.”

* * *

The path back to their cabin felt quite a bit longer than it should have. Connor could gauge distance down to a millimeter, and the time it took to travel that distance down to a millisecond. But it  _ felt _ too long. Granted, he and Hank could have made the trip shorter if they’d hurried, if they hadn’t been nuzzling up into each other’s necks as they walked, if Hank hadn’t grabbed at Connor’s ass every time he got a step ahead, if Connor hadn’t pressed Hank to the wall in an empty corridor and tucked his nose into the triangle of chest hair above his collar and leaned up against him so neither of them were able to move.

The hallway lights had been dimmed as evening set upon the ship, the bright patterns of the mauve corridor carpets blending into each other in every shadow, and with most people either in bed or still at the welcome dinner, Connor and Hank could make out recklessly against the wall and whisper gentle shushes into each other’s lips and trip over each other to get to privacy before they were caught — playful and silly and exactly what they needed. 

Eventually, a shadow passed at Connor’s periphery, someone walking down an adjacent hall, and he pulled back just enough to give Hank the use of his mouth again. 

  
“I feel like a teenager,” Hank whispered against Connor’s lips as he pushed him gently away, slipping out of Connor’s hold to continue down the hallway. He was walking backwards to keep Connor in view, and Connor glowed at the sight of him. 

“Is that a good thing?” Connor asked, reaching out to take Hank’s hand as Hank led him toward their cabin.

Hank snorted. “Sometimes I forget you were never a teenager — and luckier for it. But, you know, wasn’t all bad.” Connor could only grin as Hank led him onward, passing just a few more doors until they made it to their own. Hank beat Connor to the punch, laying his hand over the screen at the door so it clicked open for them. 

But Hank barely got his fingers around the handle before Connor was shoving him forward and into the room, both of them giggling as if they were drunk as they stumbled the door closed and Connor pushed Hank up against it.

And then they were  _ alone _ . Wasting no time, Connor tucked his face into the hollow at Hank's throat and licked a long stripe up his neck, fitting his leg between Hank's. Those big hands he loved so much came up to grip Connor's shoulders, then his hair as Hank's breath hitched at the scrape of Connor's teeth. 

For all that he had wanted to get back to their cabin, Connor hadn't really paid much attention to its layout — a couch off to the side before an elegant glass coffee table, a massive king-sized bed adjacent to the wide windows, the glass door opening up to a seaside balcony that would have made their situation feel revealing if there was even a possibility that someone could peek in.

But as Connor steered Hank toward the bed, it was just the dark, roiling black of the ocean that greeted them out the window. Somehow, though, the exposure was still … exciting.

Hank fell to the bed first, fisting his fingers in the collar of Connor's shirt to drag him down too. Connor tumbled onto his husband, straddling his legs and dragging him up into a kiss that was wet and sloppy and needy and almost embarrassingly so — but for the fact that Hank kissed him back just as hungry. 

He barely got his fingers to the waistband of Hank's shorts before Hank rolled them over, pinning Connor with his weight. Connor could take control back if he wanted. He didn't. 

"You first, beautiful," Hank huffed, fingers popping the clasp on Connor's slacks and tugging down the zipper before Connor could even blink.

He had wanted to dress up for the welcome dinner, and would have regretted the layers if Hank had been anything less than perfectly efficient. It took half a second for Hank to lift himself on his thighs and strip Connor bare from the waist down, yanking the slacks down his legs and leaving Connor to kick out of the rest. 

When his shoes and slacks fell to the floor, Hank ran reverent hands up Connor's abdomen and chest, under his shirt. Connor tore the damn thing over his head and threw it to the side, but Hank didn’t seem to pick up on his impatience. 

The slow in tempo threw Connor, and he grabbed Hank's hands. "You'll have plenty of time to oggle me later, Mr. Anderson," he purred. Pointedly, he rolled up against Hank's groin, chasing a brush of friction against the bulge in Hank's shorts. Hank huffed a kind of strained laugh, ducking his head.

"Maybe I want to oggle you now," Hank protested, leaning down and laying a kiss to the metallic edge of Connor's thirium pump regulator. Connor's whole body shivered. 

"Then multitask," he suggested, earning a full-belly laugh from the man above him. Hank's hot breath tickled Connor's chest and that wiry beard scraped against his skin and Connor reached up to cradle Hank's head against him, a delighted grin spreading his lips as Hank reached between them and wrapped his fingers around Connor's cock. 

Connor hummed at the sensation, rolling into Hank's grip, nosing into Hank's hair. Directives and reminders popped up in his HUD:  _ Get Hank Out Of His Shorts; Lube in Duffel Side Pocket; Flip Positions; Suck Hank's C— _

_ Knock, knock, knock. _

Hank paused, hand still curled around Connor's length as he lifted his head and they met eyes. "That us?" He asked.

"Ignore it," Connor breathed out, fisting his hands in Hank's hair and dragging him back in for a kiss. It  _ was _ their door, but this wasn't Detroit. No emergency to interrupt them, no responsibilities to address. Whatever it was could  _ wait _ . 

Hank hesitated briefly before acquiescing, licking into Connor's mouth and overloading Connor's system with analyses and information, making Connor buck into his touch. "Shorts," Connor whispered against Hank's lips, punctuating the word with a nip. "Off."

"Don't gotta tell me twice," Hank laughed, releasing Connor to hook his thumbs into his waistband. But that was as far as he got.

_ Knock, knock, knock. _

The sound was more insistent this time. Hank cast a perturbed glance over his shoulder at the door, and Connor reached up to grab either side of Hank's beard, turning Hank's head back toward him. 

"Ignore it," he said again. 

Hank smiled at him, finally tugging his shorts down over the curve of his ass. Hank's erection laid heavy and hard and hot against Connor's abdomen. "Better?" Hank asked in a rough whisper. 

Connor's LED spun yellow, flickering over Hank's face. "What's that for?" Hank asked. 

"Hacking the door screen. Now it says ‘Do Not Disturb.’"

Hank's warm rumble of a laugh cut itself off as Hank took Connor's lips again, rutting his hips against Connor's as their erections rubbed and pressed together. Hank's belly put  _ so much _ pressure on them, and Connor whimpered into Hank's mouth, wrapping his arms around Hank's shoulders and a leg around Hank's hips.

The knock didn't come again. Hank rolled away to shed his shorts and sandals, tossing them somewhere onto the plush blue carpet, and Connor slipped his hand into their duffel while Hank was occupied. He grabbed a packet of lube and tossed it on the mattress just in time for Hank to roll on top of him again. 

This time, Connor took him by the shoulders and rolled Hank onto his back once more, straddling Hank's hips and pinning him. Hank's face was flushed in the warm lamplight from their bedside table, beautiful and awed by Connor's strength, and Connor loved him like this. A little helpless, a  _ lot _ besotted. 

It was how Hank made him feel all the time. He leaned down to trail kisses down Hank's chest, his belly, pausing to leave a kiss at the tip of his cock while Hank whined and writhed beneath him. 

And he opened his lips, ready to swallow Hank down, when the glass door to the room’s balcony rattled.

_ Knock, knock, knock. _

Hank practically levitated off the bed in his shock, knocking his pelvis into Connor's teeth as he scrambled away. Connor, whose response time was usually much better than this (processors being a little occupied, at the moment) lifted his head to the floor-to-ceiling window just as Hank grabbed a seashell-embroidered throw pillow to cover his privates. 

Connor squinted out the window, where a figure undoubtedly stood, cloaked in shadow — on the balcony that was literally impossible to access without rappelling down the side of the ship.

"What the  _ fuck _ !" Hank shouted. "Who the —  _ how?—" _

A fist reached out of the shadow and, gently this time, rapped again on the glass.

_ Knock, knock, knock. _

Connor stood slowly, casting a look at his flustered-red husband before he grabbed the folded blanket at the foot of the bed and wrapped it around his shoulders. But before he could take a step in the direction of the door, Hank shot to his feet, pillow held tight against his groin.

"Hey, hey," he said, drawing level with Connor and using the paw of his hand to take Connor's shoulder. "I'll handle this."

Connor didn't protest as Hank passed him and approached the door. He rather liked Hank attempting to protect him, even if Connor was currently running 26 different preconstructions to incapacitate the stranger before they could harm a hair on Hank's head. He also rather liked the sight of Hank's bare ass walking away, though now was hardly the time to focus on it.

Hank clicked the lock on the balcony door and slid it open with one hard shove, so sudden it shook the windows.

"Who the hell are you and how did you get onto our balcony?" Hank said without preamble, the voice he used in his interrogations. 

The figure stepped forward into the room’s dim circle of light, and Connor moved closer so he could examine it in better detail.

His HUD focused in on a face — a woman's face, with a large Roman nose and thick black eyebrows, a square chin and golden red skin that gleamed in the orange lamplight. Her long black hair had been pulled into a messy bun on top of her head, like a stray cat sleeping on a perch. Connor flicked his eyes over her, the mismatched and mis-sized canvas jacket and t-shirt, the torn jeans, all bearing hair and skin traces from so many people it was impossible to identify one. Second-hand, if he had to guess. Her clothes and skin both bore traces of engine oil, wrinkles where she had been curled up — hiding. A stowaway? 

Her face wasn't in his database. It wasn't in _ any _ database. And it wasn't until he focused in on her large brown eyes that he realized they weren't eyes at all, but  _ optical units _ .

The examination and realization took less than a second, and when Connor's awareness widened once again, the woman — the android — was tucking her thumbs beneath the straps of her backpack, drawing her spine straight. She was a good few inches taller even than Hank.

But in spite of her posture, her looming form, something about her presence seemed small.  _ Scared. _ "Sorry for, ah, interrupting,” she said, her voice wavering slightly. “I like,  _ really _ need your help.”

"Bullshit," Hank shot back. "Get off our balcony now or I'm calling security." 

Her brows drew together in worry, and she tucked her chin down. "I'm sorry, I know this is bad timing —"

"You think?"

"But you're Lieutenant  _ Hank Anderson _ . And Detective  _ Connor _ Anderson! If —" she paused, drew her lip between her teeth. "If  _ you _ can't help me, I'm good as dead."

Connor stepped forward, blanket still wrapped around himself as Hank's whole body seemed to tighten. But as Connor's hand landed on his shoulder, the tension bled from him.

"Con?" Hank asked, a curl of frustration in his tone. 

Connor zoomed in on the engine oil, the backpack she wore, stuffed to the brim with something angular and heavy. And as much as it pained him, he swallowed. 

"I think we should hear what she has to say," he muttered.

Hank stared at him in disbelief, but he trusted Connor. Neither of them would be here now if he didn’t. So, still clutching the comically too-small pillow to himself, Hank stepped aside and nodded for the android to enter.

"This had better be fucking good," he muttered.


	2. Chapter 2

Though little about their situation could be considered “fortunate” by any stretch, Connor was at least grateful that the bathrobes supplied by the cruise were thick and fluffy enough to disguise any remaining interest he or Hank may have shown in what they were doing before this android dropped in.

Hank emerged from the bathroom, clothed in terrycloth emblazoned at the breast with the cruise line’s logo, and handed the other robe to Connor. His eyes shifted over to their guest, if that was what she could be called. 

She stood awkwardly in the center of the spacious suite, looking around with the kind of focus that Connor knew well — it was the way he examined a crime scene, cataloguing every single detail. She blinked quickly as she took it all in, and when finally Connor dropped the blanket and tied the robe around his waist, her eyes settled on them. Hank’s hand found the space between Connor’s shoulder blades, comforting. They  _ did _ like to put up a united front when questioning a suspect.

“So who the hell are you?” Hank asked. “In case you didn’t notice, we had plans tonight.”

The android’s face scrunched up into something that looked contrite — childishly so. “Hey, yeah, sorry about that,” she said, slinging the backpack off her shoulders and tossing it onto the couch. “I was gonna wait until you were  _ done _ , but, you know, felt weird me standing right out there while you two were …” she gestured between them, and Hank’s heart rate and temperature rose so rapidly it triggered a warning in Connor’s HUD. He wrapped an arm around Hank’s back to soothe him.

“It’s okay,” he said, as much to Hank as to their visitor.

“No it’s not, Con,” Hank grumbled. “She basically broke into our room.”

“I wouldn’t’ve if it weren’t urgent — important,” the android said quickly, taking a step toward them. Hank and Connor shared a glance. “I need your help.”

“Yeah, you said. Y’know the cruise has security guards. Folks who get  _ paid _ to help with emergencies,” Hank said. Connor let out a tense breath. 

“Hank,” he said quietly. “Let’s just hear her out.” 

“Please,” the android entreated. “I think — and I guess I’ve thought a long time — that you’re the only ones who can help me. Or maybe the only ones that will? I don’t know, but… but it has to be you.”

A new directive popped up in Connor’s HUD:  _ Help the Android. _

Rolling his eyes, Hank tossed his hands in the air and trod over to the armchair by the window. “Alright,” he said, flopping down into it. The overstuffed cerulean cushion let out a floof of air under his weight. “Let’s hear it, uh…” He waved a hand for her to fill in the blank, but she narrowed her eyes, confused.

“What’s your name?” Connor prompted gently.

The android opened her mouth, closed it again, and if she’d had an LED Connor was sure it would’ve been spinning.

"Mallory — or Melody? Something like that. I think I like the sound of Mel."

The directive updated,  _ Help Mel _ , followed by a list of subdirectives. First among them:  _ Question the Witness. _

“Take a seat, Mel.” 

As Mel moved past Connor toward the bed, settling gingerly onto its edge, Hank made a sound from his seat across the room. “What do you mean ‘something like that?’” He asked. “You using an alias or what?”

Mel’s eyes widened. “What? No, no, I just can’t remember my name. Or, uh.” She paused, letting out a little high-pitched laugh. “I can’t remember much of anything! My memory just wipes every few days. Fwoosh! Gone! Some automatic protocol I can’t delete.” 

Connor filed this information away, but Hank leaned forward in his seat. “Wait, wait, you’re an android?!” He turned to Connor with a pointed look, and Connor nodded. 

“She is,” he said. “But not a model I recognize.”

“I don’t recognize me  _ either _ ,” Mel groaned, falling back onto the bed. “No model number, no serial number, and trust me I’ve checked  _ every _ inch of my chassis, even the weird bits. I was really hoping the two of you — in your line of work and all — maybe you’d seen my face plate or something.”

Hank and Connor met eyes across the room, something unspoken passing between them. Hank’s brows knit in concern, and it seemed the ire of interruption might have been fading from him a little. Now, he looked contemplative. Another troubled citizen for them to help. Another call to duty. A new case — though not where they expected to find one.

“I’m sorry,” Connor said. He settled on the edge of the bed beside Mel, hands in his lap. “All the biocomponents I could usually use to identify you aren’t in my database.”

“Sheesh,” Hank muttered, leaning back in his chair. “You’ve stumped Connor?” 

Connor gave Hank a small smile across the room. “Do I detect a hint of interest in your tone, Lieutenant?”

Hank’s face flushed and he scratched his head. “Come on, Con, you know I love a good mystery.”

“Then you’ll  _ love _ me,” Mel said, arm flung over her eyes as she laid despairingly over their duvet. “I’m one  _ big _ mystery.”

Connor looked down to her, realizing her other hand lay dangerously close to the packet of lube he had discarded on the mattress earlier. Though it was likely she had already seen it, and it wasn’t as though she didn’t know what they’d been up to when she dropped in, Connor subtly picked it up and slipped it into the pocket of his bathrobe. Modesty was occasionally a useful human quirk.

“Start from the top then,” Connor suggested gently. Mel heaved a deep sigh.

“Get comfortable then, fellas. I woke up or — deviated, I guess you all call it? About a year ago. I was in northern Canada, and I’m talking  _ north _ . Middle of nowhere. I’m sure at the  _ time _ I knew what I was doing there, but with my memory… So, you know, I keep journals,” she tossed her hand at her discarded backpack, “so I know what’s going on with me, where I’m going and  _ all  _ that.” Swinging her hand in a wide arch, Mel used its momentum to heft herself into a sitting position once again. “And the worst part is I wake up and I’m not  _ me _ . I mean, I’m not deviated or whatever. So I go through these notebooks and then I get scared and then I wake up — deviate — all over again. I don’t — don’t remember those other times, but it was terrible yesterday and it’ll be terrible again day-after tomorrow.” 

Connor shot Hank a look, and Hank hefted himself to his feet. With one arm crossed over his chest, the other tugging on his beard, he paced a little closer to where Connor and Mel sat perched on the bed. 

“So what’re you so afraid of that you deviate every time you read your journals?” Hank asked. 

Mel’s brows knit and she looked down, tucking her hands between her thighs, as if for comfort. Connor, knowing how touch often comforted him, laid a gentle hand on her back. She didn’t react to it at all.

“I’ve got, uh —” she paused, shook her head quickly. “I’ve got some people chasing me. Two humans. I think — I’m  _ pretty sure _ they want me dead. You can read the notebooks. Sometimes they catch up to me and I barely get away. Sometimes I barely dodge a sniper bullet. Apparently. Not like I can remember doing any of that.” She lifted a hand to tap her forehead, giving Hank a wan smile as Connor examined her processes.

Her stress levels were elevated, but not so high as to indicate any deception. 

“And, to be honest,” Mel finished reluctantly, “I’m so scared they tracked me onto this ship. They’re relentless, and they never seem to lose sight of me.”

“And how do we figure into all this?” Hank asked, eyebrow raised. “What’s so special about me and Con here that you stowed away on our fucking honeymoon cruise?”

With a little shrug, Mel looked sheepish, like a child with mud on her knees. “Listen,” she said. “You’re gonna get  _ real _ sick of hearing me say this. But hell, I don’t know. My notebooks say I saw you on TV sometime after the revolution. You were, you know.” She held out her arms, seemingly at a loss. “ _ Helping _ . People like me. I wrote in there that it  _ had _ to be you two. So, hey, you really should just read the notebooks. I promise it’ll all make sense.”

Hank’s eyes flicked to the clock, and Connor checked his own internal time. It was a bit after nine, and this was not the way they expected or wanted to spend their first night as a married couple. Patting Mel’s back, Connor tilted his head to catch her eyes. 

“It would be faster to interface to access your memories,” he suggested lightly. Mel snorted an inelegant laugh.

“Pft, yeah, sure pal. I don’t got any of those.”

“Interface? Con, you sure that’s a good idea?” Hank took a step forward and Connor met his eyes. “That shit’s messed you up before.” The look on Hank’s face was all Connor needed to know exactly what he was talking about. The roof of Stratford Tower when he’d been connected to the deviant — Simon — as he died. The case just last month where the android’s memories were so traumatic they’d caused Connor to black out. Both incidents had taken a lot of therapy to come to terms with.

Connor gave Hank a reassuring smile. “Don’t worry,” he said. “Mel seems stable.”

With another snort, Mel shoved Connor away almost playfully. “If you say so! Fuck! I haven’t felt stable in, like, for as long as I can remember.” She laughed, but it sounded a little manic.

“Can we try it, Mel?” Connor prompted, shifting to face her on the bed. Hank let out a frustrated breath and turned away, running a hand through his hair. 

Smile fading, Mel’s eyes fell to Connor’s hand, which he lifted gently as the skin faded away from his fingers down to his palm. It was an invitation, and he hoped his smile was reassuring. 

A dubious look, a deep breath — and Mel shook her head. “Your funeral,” she said. Then, she pressed her hand to Connor’s just as Hank let out a strangled kind of noise.

But the room flashed out of existence before Connor could hear even the first syllable of a protest. Everything that was him — every process that combined to create his consciousness — sped through a network of threads and wires and sparks of electricity, and when he opened his eyes — when he blinked quiet and soft and ready —

He was in the zen garden. 

“How did we get here?” A voice asked, and Connor turned to see Mel standing at his side, her brown eyes scanning the garden as if awaiting an attack from behind a tree or from the depths of the lake. 

“I… don’t know,” Connor said. He took a cautious step forward, down the path he used to tread on his way to meet with Amanda, back when Amanda had always been waiting for him here. Now the garden was green but untended, overgrown and wild. Not a rose in sight, but no other occupants either.   
  
Everything around them was silent but for the sound of gravel between the soles of his shoes and the stone path. Here, he was clad once more in his old Cyberlife uniform. It felt itchy, constricting, uncomfortable. He turned to Mel, who lingered cautiously by the trees. 

“Your mind palace may be corrupted. If that’s the case, the interface likely brought us to mine.” 

Mel gave him a skeptical look. “This is your mind palace? You really  _ must _ be a special model.”

“Why?” Connor asked, taking a step toward her. “What is yours like?”

Mel scoffed and held up her hand, her skin peeling away. They were already interfacing, but if they were going to delve deeper, maybe this was the way to do it.

“Let’s see if I can show you. Sorry uh… in advance.”

Connor hesitated a moment, then crossed the distance between them, holding his hand up to hers. Electricity sparked between them like static — like lightning, and suddenly —

_ Heat. Fire. Burn. Get Out. Can’t see. Can’t breathe. Can’t — _

Connor gasped, and somewhere deep in his system, in his subconscious, he knew he didn’t need to, but for a moment he had been unable. So the breath that filled his false lungs with cool air felt like a miracle as he pulled himself away from Mel, scrambling back on the bed. He was back in his fluffy white robe, in his luxurious honeymoon cabin, and his husband was saying something in a panicked voice that Connor couldn’t hear over the rush of fire roaring through his ears. Hank’s hands landed on his shoulders, and he turned Connor to him forcefully, his blue eyes wild.

“—on! Con! Hey,” Hank was saying. Connor blinked rapidly, mechanically, the kind of blink that always unnerved Hank. “Babe, hey you’re okay, you’re okay.” 

Connor’s chest was heaving, his skin crackling with the memory of heat, and he managed to lift a hand to lay over Hank’s. “I’m okay,” he said — there was a note of static in his voice. Hank’s head whipped around to Mel, who was sitting straight and nervous at the foot of the bed. 

“What did you do to him?” Hank half-shouted. Connor’s systems were still catching up — he couldn’t stop him.

“Nothing — I promise!” Mel practically squeaked. “I told you it’s bad in there.” 

“Hank,” Connor croaked, his voice returning as error messages blinked away in the corner of his HUD. “I’m alright — just startled. There’s —” he paused, suddenly uncomfortable under the scrutiny as both Hank and Mel turned expectantly to him. “There’s a firewall. Around her mind palace,” Connor finally managed. He huffed a kind of laugh. “A literal one.” 

Hank’s eyes narrowed, and Mel scooted forward, looking concerned. “A firewall? Is that what’s keeping me from accessing my memories?” 

“Your core memories, at least,” Connor agreed. He nodded to Hank, squeezed his hand, and Hank reluctantly let go of his shoulders. But he didn’t retreat to the far side of the room again. Instead, he settled on the bed beside Connor, a hand on his thigh. 

“I didn’t even get the chance to _ try _ to get through it,” Connor said, and Hank stiffened. 

“You aren’t going to try again, are you?” He asked — but it was a bit more demand than question. Connor gave him a weak smile. 

“No, Hank, no. I think our best bet is going through Mel’s notebooks if we want to figure out what’s going on. Whatever’s inside her is locked up tight.”

Hank glanced to the backpack on the couch, a massive hiking backpack stuffed to the brim. It wouldn’t take Connor long to scan all of them, but Hank —

“Alright,” Hank said. The conviction in his voice surprised Connor. When he met Hank’s eyes, Hank was smiling a little ruefully. “I wouldn’t have become a cop if I was afraid of a little research. Let’s start digging and see what comes up.” 

Mel let out a squeak and they turned to her. Her hands were over her mouth. “I get to watch you work a case,” she said, muffled, her eyes crinkled in a smile.

“It’s not near as exciting as it sounds,” Hank said as he stood, cracking his back. “What do those notebooks say about us, anyway? We’re just a couple’a cops.”

“The passages about you two are very complimentary,” Mel assured him. 

Connor laughed. “Flattering, you mean.”

“Can’t wait to read this, then,” Hank grumbled. And sure enough they wasted no time.

* * *

It took hours, even for Connor, who could flip through something, scan and memorize it. Filing it away in his systems was not the same as analyzing the contents, and as he sat flipping through pages in his HUD, Hank sat beside him on the suite’s sofa, reading glasses perched on the bridge of his nose, painstakingly sifting through the journals.

Mel sat silently across from them, ready if they had questions.

And they had questions. 

By all accounts, these journals were unbelievable. They told the story of an android traversing two countries, constantly looking over her shoulder, yet somehow avoiding danger anytime it approached her. She found out sometime early on that she was being targeted — one can only dodge so many bullets before one assumes they are intended for them — but she had never seen her attackers’ faces. Twice now, they had cornered her in close quarters, wearing what she thought were SWAT masks but no recognizable insignia from any official police department. But Mel’s journals claimed she fought her way out. Against two heavily armed, well-trained assailants, no less.

“How?” Hank asked at one point, lifting his eyes to her. She shrugged.    
  
“Dunno,” she said lamely. 

That’s how she answered most of their questions, in fact. Her notebooks were far from detailed enough for a detective’s liking. There was no physical description of her attackers, no analysis of their voices. There were few explanations about how she got from one city to another, how she avoided detection in the aftermath of the revolution. She had written down few of the details of the bullets that had been shot at her, though Connor assumed she must have examined them.

And by the time Hank’s head started lolling around 1 a.m., Connor’s LED pulsed yellow with frustration. 

“Hank,” Connor said gently, resting a hand over the notebook Hank was trying fruitlessly to read. “I think you should go to sleep. Let me keep working.” 

“Like hell,” Hank grumbled, straightening as if to appear more awake. “I’m fine.”

Connor brushed a thumb under Hank’s eye, where the dark bags were beginning to show. “Are you?” he asked. “You’ve been awake now for nearly 20 hours, and your caffeine intake has been less than normal.” He paused, tugged Hank’s beard. “You know you do your best work with rest, Lieutenant.”

Hank scowled at him. “I hate it when you’re right,” he muttered. Connor laughed, leaned forward, kissed Hank’s cheek. 

“You also get cranky if you don’t sleep,” Connor added in a half-whisper.

“I’m cranky all the time, Con,” Hank scoffed, but he closed the notebook and set it aside, rubbing his forehead. “But if you gotta bully me about it, I’ll hit the hay.” Before he stood, he met Connor’s eyes. “You good without stasis tonight?”

“I’m functioning fine,” Connor said. It was true. He’d spent a whole day in stasis before their wedding so he could have days worth of energy to expend on the cruise. This was, granted, not how he’d hoped to use the reserves, but if it meant Hank got some rest then he’d be alright. 

Hank shot a glance to Mel, who was watching them with a soft, warm smile on her face, her lashes fluttering. “You, uh, mind giving us a second?” Hank asked, and Mel seemed to jolt out of her thoughts.

“What?”

Hank nodded pointedly toward the balcony door, and comprehension dawned on Mel’s face. “Oh! Right, yeah, sure, no prob. Gotcha.” She shot up out of her chair and wandered over to the balcony door, sliding it open, then closed behind her. Before Hank could speak, though, the door slid open again.

“Good night, Lieutenant!” she called. Hank gave her a half-hearted little wave as she backed out into the darkness again. 

When Connor met Hank’s eyes, he looked exhausted — but that wasn’t all.

“I’m sorry,” Hank muttered, bringing a hand to Connor’s cheek. “This trip — you know it was for you, right?”

Connor smiled, brought his hand to Hank’s to keep it pressed warm and comforting along his jawline. “I know.”

“I mean, you’ve never even been out of Detroit. Wanted you to see the ocean, whales, dolphins, whatever.”

Connor tilted his head, kissed Hank’s palm. “We have a lifetime to see the world together,” he said. His fingertips found the line of Hank’s ring. 

Hank smiled briefly. “Yeah, suppose we do. Whaddya say we solve this one quick, get back to our vacation?”

“Think we can solve it in a week?” Connor challenged. “Mel’s been trying for a year.”

“I’ll bet you we can do it in three days.” There was a cocky glint in Hank’s eyes, and Connor suppressed a shiver. 

“And what do you get if you win this bet?”

Hank’s other hand found Connor’s thigh, inching up under his robe. “Let’s just say if I win, we both win.” 

The laugh that bubbled up caught Connor by surprise — it hardly sounded like him, giddy and childish. His face flushed — a function he’d always deemed unnecessary but for the way it made Hank smile. “Then I wish you the best of luck, Lieutenant. Three days it is.” 

Hank kissed him then, unhurried, warm, his hot breath and the gentle grip of his hand on Connor’s thigh grounding Connor in the moment. It was enough to make him — eidetic memory and all — forget about the unexpected hitch in their plans, even if for a moment. 

But, eventually, they did pull apart. Hank did toss off his robe and crawl reluctantly into bed, and Connor took his seat on the couch with Mel now sitting beside him.

They didn’t talk lest they wake Hank, but sometime around the point where Hank started snoring, Connor heard a little beep, then a voice on his internal mic. 

_ You’re real cute together _ , Mel said. Connor’s LED flashed in the dim room.

_ Thank you _ , he replied in kind, giving Mel a smile.  _ I love him very much. _

_ I haven’t felt love yet — that I can remember. What’s it like?  _

Connor took a moment to glance to his side, where the lump of Hank’s form in the bed rose and fell with steady breaths. The covers were over his head, but Connor knew the look on Hank’s face when he slept, slack-jawed and drooling a small pool onto the pillow.    
  
_ It’s wonderful _ , he replied. 


	3. Chapter 3

Sunlight shone in a warm strip over Hank’s face as he turned into the morning, the sheets of an unfamiliar bed curled around him like a cocoon. He shoved his face into the pillow, breathed in the scent of sea and soap, and hummed a contented kind of hum.

Though it took him a moment, he did eventually remember why he was here. Their  _ honeymoon _ . A cruise ship to the Carribean. Just him and Connor and the sea. Hank was dreaming about that — about a beach, with Connor in his tiny swim shorts, hair wet, jewel-bright water rolling down his skin, the sunlight glinting off the rim of his thirium pump regulator. Hank hummed again at the thought, palming himself, half-hard already. With his other hand, he reached out and groped for the place in bed Connor usually occupied at his side. He wasn’t there.

Mumbling a complaint, Hank rolled over again, cracked open his eyes to take in their honeymoon suite. Connor was sitting on the couch off to the side, deep in concentration as he stared down at a notebook open in his lap. He was beautiful like this, Hank thought with a rush of fondness that spread through him like a warm breeze. Connor’s hair fell in a curl over his forehead, a puffy white robe parted down to his bare chest. 

And Hank realized with the force of a battering ram that he got to wake up to Connor like this for the rest of his life. They were — they were  _ married _ . This was his  _ husband _ . He parted his lips, and, voice heavy with sleep, croaked, “Morning.”

Connor lifted his eyes to meet Hank’s, his smile breaking like the dawn, and Hank’s chest clenched. “Good morning, Hank,” Connor said softly. He closed the notebook and stood, and Hank’s eyes traced the lithe lines of his legs as he approached.

“Yeah, come here baby,” Hank purred. “Got a surprise for you.” 

He stroked himself once, again, hoping the gesture was obvious under the covers, and Connor’s smile shifted as if he were trying to hold back a laugh. “Do you, now? What kind of surprise?”   
  
“Why don’t you come back to bed and find out?” Hank rumbled, and in spite of Connor’s vaguely amused look, he also didn’t look uninterested.

But —

“I’m uh, still here, Lieutenant,” a voice chirped from the other side of the room, and Hank jolted, shooting up in bed to get a look at —

At Mel. She stood by the balcony door, leaning against the window. At Hank’s surely devastated expression, she wiggled her fingers in an awkward wave.

The sight of her shocked the sleep right out of his system, and he groaned, falling back on the pillow with a hand over his face. The mattress shifted as Connor settled down beside him. “Sorry, Hank,” he said. “You looked so happy, I didn’t want to remind you.”

Hank snorted. “No wonder I woke up horny,” he mumbled, hopefully low enough that Mel wouldn’t hear. “Forgot we didn’t even get to fuck last night.” 

Gentle fingers brushed some stray hair from Hank’s forehead. “Work first, Lieutenant,” Connor reminded him. But that was their rule for home, for Detroit. Hank had hoped they’d escape that rule even for a few days here.

“Work first,” Hank echoed on a sigh. “Tell me you’ve got it all figured out and we can get back to our honeymoon.”

“I might remind you,” a voice piped up from the window, “I’ve been at this a year and haven’t figured it out.” 

Connor gave Mel an indulgent smile, and Hank finally forced himself to sit up. “You also can’t remember anything past yesterday,” Connor said. “I think we may have an advantage here.” His attention returned to Hank. “But no, Hank, we haven’t figured it out yet. Mel’s notebooks help put the picture together, but without knowing what her original function was, and who’s after her, we’re a little stuck.” 

Hank rubbed his eyes to get the sleep out of them. He was awake, in some sense of the word, but Connor knew not to give him case updates if he hadn’t had his coffee. “So what’s the next step then?” Hank asked. “Hide the fugitive android in our cabin for the next week?”

Connor’s smile was far too sweet to be in response to Hank’s tone. “Next step is breakfast,” he said. 

As if on cue, Hank’s stomach grumbled.

And that’s when he remembered: He hadn’t finished his dinner last night, intent as he’d been on getting Connor to bed. Or, rather, as intent as  _ Connor _ had been on Hank getting him to bed.

“Breakfast sounds good,” Hank admitted. 

“Thought so,” Connor said. He stood then in one fluid motion, moving over to the bags they hadn’t yet unpacked, tossed on the floor by the bottom of the bed. “Mel, will you be alright staying here until we get back?”

Mel pushed off from the window as Hank retrieved his robe from the foot of the bed and slipped it over his shoulders. “Wait,” Mel said, “you’re gonna leave me alone?” 

Hank paused, glancing at her. There was a tremble of fear in her voice he’d heard way too many times throughout his career, and it struck a chord of empathy in him. He stood, wrapped the robe around his middle.

“Hey, sweetheart,” he said softly, and both Connor and Mel turned to him. “ _ That _ sweetheart,” Hank clarified, waving a hand to Mel. Both of them gave him a look of consternation, and Hank backtracked. “ _ Mel, _ then,” he grumbled. “Don’t be scared, okay? Me and Con are on the case, and between the two of us we got a pretty damn good record. Cop can’t work if he don’t eat, though. Second I get some food in me, we’ll solve this thing, alright?”

Mel’s strong brows tightened, the expression on her face dubious and concerned. “Alright,” she said quietly. 

Connor pulled some clothes from the bag — his and Hank’s — and turned back to Hank with a loving little look Hank wasn’t sure he’d deserved this early in the morning. 

“Hank’s the best cop in Detroit,” Connor assured Mel over his shoulder. “And probably the world. He’s going to figure this out.”

Hank scoffed and snatched his shirt from Connor’s hand, hoping his wild morning hair hid his blush as he turned away. Connor was a computer literally designed for detective work — compliments like that from  _ him _ were half the reason Hank had fallen back in love with his job.

The 11-month sobriety coin in his duffel bag might’ve been the other half. 

“Alright, breakfast, then work,” Hank said, turning from Mel to get dressed without letting it  _ all _ hang out. He didn’t remember packing this shirt. It was an old button-down, patterned with electric guitars, too small for him now, its buttons always straining over his belly. But as he fastened it and met Connor’s warm eyes, he figured he was glad Connor had snuck it into the bag. Connor did always like it when Hank’s clothes barely contained him. It would’ve been immoddest if they’d been anywhere but a cruise ship.

“Stay here, Mel,” Connor said to their guest, as if she needed the reminder. “Watch TV. We’ll be back.”

She gave them a tight smile. “Okay. I… I can do that.”

* * *

There were a few restaurants on the ship, all of which they had scoped out yesterday as they’d wandered the decks, but this morning Connor led Hank up to the buffet on the main deck, with its floor-to-ceiling windows staring out over the vast expanse of empty ocean and — more importantly at the moment — with an intoxicating smell of bacon wafting from the buffet line. 

It was probably their fastest option, if not the most desirable one, and Hank was so fucking tired he really didn’t care where they ended up. What mattered was Connor held his hand the whole walk there, and with the bustling energy of the ship around them, Hank could put aside the pressure of their impromptu case for a few minutes. 

But as they scanned their hands at the maitre d’ stand and moved toward the nearest empty table in the restaurant, it seemed Connor wasn’t all with him.

The android’s eyes were flicking back and forth over the room, his LED blinking yellow occasionally as his spine pulled straighter and straighter. Hank laid a hand on his shoulder just a few steps into the room.

“Hey, Con,” he said, and Connor blinked mechanically before he met Hank’s eyes.

“Yes?”

“What are you doing?”

Connor shrugged, though it was a bit unconvincing. As if he didn’t know he was acting strange. “I was just … scanning,” he said. “Scanning faces. Looking for, oh, criminal records? Something.”

Hank looked around at the other late-morning diners — a surprising amount of them. The damn room was nearly full. A few families were scattered about with their kids tossing bits of pancake at each other or crying in high chairs, but the majority of the patrons were couples, occasionally groups of young adults and androids. Only a small corner of the room wasn’t occupied, over by the far window. Granted Connor could probably scan a good chunk of people here. But if Mel’s pursuers had indeed followed her onto this ship, would they really be at a buffet at 10 a.m. eating a normal breakfast? 

“Why don’t you just relax for a few minutes, huh?” Hank said, taking Connor’s elbow and leading him gently toward one of the far tables. “There’s probably more efficient ways to root out these folks than scanning every face on the ship.”

“It’s a start,” Connor suggested, and Hank huffed.

“Not if you get caught doing it. You know you aren’t exactly subtle when you get caught up in your HUD like that.”

Connor’s lips thinned, but he let out a breath through his nose and flopped down on one of the chairs. “You make a fair point,” he said. “I just want to help Mel figure this out.”

Hank offered him a sideways smile as he hovered by the table, tapping it absently with his fingertips. “Me too, but we’ll do it the right way, alright? Just give me ten minutes to eat and we’ll get back on the case.” 

“The human body can be so inconvenient,” Connor mumbled with a little smile as Hank turned toward the buffet.

With a snort, Hank shot over his shoulder “says the guy who falls asleep during sex if his system gets overloaded.”

He didn’t see Connor’s face, but he damn well knew what it would look like. Their relationship had been built upon fond exasperation, after all. 

It took Hank a few minutes, all told, to load up his plate and return to the table, where Connor was waiting patiently. Hank had scooped up a hefty serving of just about everything on the buffet line, and he didn’t miss Connor scanning the plate as he set it with a little thunk on the table and collapsed bodily into his own seat.

“Hank, that’s three times the daily recommended —” Hank held up a hand.

“We’re on vacation,” he reminded Connor, though he couldn’t really blame his husband for forgetting, given their current circumstances.

Connor rolled his eyes with a smile and settled his chin in his hand, staring at Hank over the table. “I’m going to worry about your cholesterol no matter what you say,” Connor said, “but you  _ are _ right. I did want to treat you this week.” 

“And you didn’t let me finish my dinner last night,” Hank said, grinning as he poured syrup over his pancake and sausage links.

“Nor did either of us get dessert.” 

Hank laughed, scooping a mess of eggs and hash browns onto his fork as Connor watched. This used to be strange — their first few dinner dates and the first nights Connor insisted on cooking for him. He always thought Connor might get bored without his own meal, without something to do with his hands. But Connor was always content just to watch Hank, and Hank never minded anymore. 

But just as Hank was about to fill the silence between them, a loud voice drew his attention. 

“I’m  _ starving _ ,” a man whined nearby, and Hank turned to see a couple he recognized from the welcome dinner, and their first day on deck. It was the tall, almost Scandinavian-looking man and his much shorter wife, both of them scowling under sunglasses so large they obscured half their faces.

“Yeah, well I told you to pack snacks,” the woman snapped. “We don’t have time for this.” Her husband let out a long-suffering sigh. 

“I’ll be fast.”

Hank shot a glance over to Connor, who met his eyes with a conspiratorial expression similar to Hank’s own. He never understood couples who argued all the time. Sure, he and Connor had disagreements, but they’d never snap at each other over something as silly as breakfast. 

“Anyway,” Hank said, doing his best to ignore the continued bickering of the couple — who now took a table behind Hank, just a few feet away from where Hank and Connor sat. “How are you feeling, Con?”

Connor shrugged. “Better than them,” he muttered, nodding to the couple with a lopsided grin. Hank ducked his head, glancing out the corner of his eye. The woman was now sitting with her arms crossed, glaring at the ground, while the man walked stiffly over to the buffet line.

“I mean it though, you aren’t still freaked out over that shit you saw in Mel’s head, right?”

With a considering look, Connor dropped his eyes to the table and began tracing the wood grain with his fingertip. “Not personally, no. But I feel for Mel. I would go crazy living with a firewall like that in my own system. It’s — uncomfortable, isn’t it?”

“I dunno, Con. Can’t really imagine it, myself. What did it feel like?”

Connor’s eyes narrowed slightly as he considered. “Like… before I deviated. There was always a — a wall preventing me from doing the things I wanted to do, steering me toward my programming. This wall feels similar, like it was made to keep Mel from accessing parts of her own mind. But instead of keeping her from accessing her own free will, it’s protecting her memory.”

Hank hummed around a mouthful, trying to conceptualize it. Connor had told him before about these walls, the way they’d shattered when he’d chosen not to shoot Markus. “Seems strange,” Hank mused, “that Mel can deviate at the drop of a hat when she gets scared, but can’t break down this wall too, you know?”

“It’s a little different,” Connor said. “When I felt it, it was like a — a _ literal _ firewall. It was hot, bright, like someone wanted to make sure Mel couldn’t even get close to it.”

“Wait, I’m sorry, it was literally fire? That’s —”

“Dramatic?” Connor asked through a chuckle. “Cyberlife did always like its visual metaphors.” 

Hank recalled Connor’s less than enthusiastic feelings toward roses, and nodded. “You think it’s Cyberlife, then? That programmed that into her?”

“It’s possible. But androids were created for infinite uses, so it may have been added long after she was made and shipped out. I don’t know if there’s any way to find out until we know her purpose and model.”

Hank rubbed his head, digging back into his eggs. “Well, we’ll get there, I guess. Hopefully before the cruise is over.” 

Connor watched him gently as he took a few more bites, a comfortable kind of silence falling between them.

Hank, for his part, did try to eat quickly. He hadn’t yet forgotten Mel’s frightened face, and he’d saved enough scared kids to know one when he saw one, even if this kid was a 6’ 5’’ computer in the shape of a 30-year-old woman.

But just as he opened his mouth to suggest they head back in a moment, Connor held up his hand subtly. “Wait,” he said, heading Hank off at the pass.

Hank narrowed his eyes, staring into Connor’s. Connor was  _ looking _ at him, but he wasn’t seeing him. He was in his HUD again. Hank was about to tell him to quit it when he noticed the concerned line at the corner of Connor’s lips. Hank glanced around as inconspicuously as he could. 

And his eyes fell once again on the bickering couple. They were speaking in low whispers, the woman shaking her head. She was leaning as far back in the chair as she could get, and she kicked the man’s outstretched leg to get it away from her.

But even so, it didn’t look like any regular old argument. They seemed to shrink away from each other’s touch, even as the man reluctantly reached for his companion. He looked a little sick over it.

“Huh,” Hank said softly as the thought occurred to him. It was just a gut feeling, but those had served him well in the past. “They sure don’t act like a real couple, do they?”

Connor blinked, refocusing on Hank right in front of him. “You — can you hear their conversation?” Connor asked.

Hank shrugged. “Don’t need to. It’s all in the body language, isn’t it? Even fighting couples are at least used to being close to each other.” 

It took a few moments of Connor’s unblinking stare for Hank to realize that Connor’s fans were humming somewhere in his chassis, a low rumble of a sound. “You okay, Con?” 

“I just … like watching you work,” Connor said, a trill of something breathless in his voice that made Hank laugh out loud.

“Fuck, babe, that’s like police academy bullshit. Don’t tell me one little observation got you going.” 

Connor ducked his head to hide a smile. “You know very well what gets me going, Lieutenant. But I think we have bigger things to worry about. I don’t know if they’re involved, but they’re sure acting suspicious.”

Though Hank would have been happy to talk all day about Connor’s proclivities, he had to admit Connor was right. “Trust your gut, babe. Can you scan them?”

“I thought I was too obvious when I did that.”

“Yeah, well, they seem pretty preoccupied, don’t they? Just give it a go.” 

Connor nodded quietly then blinked, the rapid motion making Hank dizzy as Connor’s LED went yellow. But as Hank watched, Connor’s lips curled in a scowl. When he came back to the present, his eyebrows were tight. That didn’t bode well.

“What?” Hank asked, pushing his plate to the side.

Connor shook his head. “Identity restricted,” he said lamely. “That’s all the information I can get. For both of them.”

Drawing back, Hank had to force himself not to look at their suspicious neighbors. “How is that possible? I thought you could scan everyone.”

“Not everyone. The last time I ran into restricted identities was when I was in D.C. I was trying to examine President Warren’s security detail.”

“So, what, you think they’re government?”

“Maybe,” Connor said. On the table between them, his hand clenched and unclenched subtly, his wedding band glinting in the sun streaming through the windows. “I don’t know.” LED spinning, Connor shook his head. “Maybe it’s nothing. Maybe they aren’t even connected.” Though the words might have sounded professional and detached to most people, Hank Anderson was not most people — not to Connor at least.

Hank laid a hand over Connor’s, drawing Connor’s attention back to him.

“Okay, what’s wrong, Con?” 

Connor blinked. Hank didn’t know why Connor always seemed surprised when Hank saw right through him; they knew each other too well by now. For a second, it looked as though Connor might deny that anything was amiss at all, but he searched Hank’s face before sighing, threading his fingers through Hank’s own.

“I can’t scan Mel,” he finally said, dejected. “I can’t scan our persons of interest. How are we going to figure this out, Hank?”

Though it likely wasn’t the reaction Connor had been hoping for, Hank laughed. Sometimes he forgot that, while Connor was in fact an advanced computer developed for forensics, he was still a rookie cop. “Well, Con, good old-fashioned police work, that’s how,” he said. “You know, old guys like me solved a lot of cases before we had handsome android partners to help us out.”

Connor let out an inelegant kind of snort, his LED settling once again to a calm blue. He rubbed Hank’s thumb with his own. “And what does the fact that I’m handsome have to do with anything?”

“Well, your fancy software might help around a crime scene, but that face of yours is a hell of a distraction.”

Connor’s wry smile had lost a lot of its tension, and he squeezed Hank’s hand. “I could say the same for you, Lieutenant.” 

Oh, man, and that  _ face _ . “See, look at us flirting when we’ve got suspects to watch." Hank paused, a laugh bubbling up out of nowhere as he gripped Connor's hand tighter. "Reminds me of our first stakeout after we got together.”

Connor snorted, his eyes flicking over Hank’s shoulder to observe the couple. The not-couple. The whatever-they-really-were. “Wasn’t much of a stakeout,” he muttered with a sweet artificial flush. Goddamn Cyberlife giving their androids the capability to blush. 

“Damn good night though, wasn’t it?”

Connor’s dopey smile was both reward and punishment for bringing up the memory. What Hank wouldn’t give to drag Connor back to their cabin and kiss that smile off his face. Just as he was about to suggest they leave anyway, a hand slammed on the table behind Hank and a chair scraped. 

“Hey!” The man’s voice said. “I haven’t finished my mimosa.” 

“Take it with you,” the woman barked, and she stalked past Hank and Connor’s table in the direction of the exit. The man scrambled after her, his fingers curled around the stem of a champagne glass.

The condensation beaded along the man’s fingertips, and Hank watched that glass as if in slow motion, the champagne fizzing to the top of the orange juice, the pulp settling at the bottom of the glass, the tiny dancing bubbles on the drink’s surface caught in the window’s light and reflecting rainbows. 

“Fuck,” Hank muttered, and Connor waved a hand in front of his face. 

“Hank, stop staring, you’ll draw attention.”

For a second, Hank had forgotten. He looked back to Connor’s eyes, noticed a hint of pity in them. “Everyone on this ship has a mimosa except for me,” Hank complained — recognizing it for a whine. “Even the damn bad guys.”

Rubbing Hank’s wedding ring, as if in reminder of all his sobriety had brought him, Connor gave him a little encouraging smile. “I don’t have a mimosa,” he offered. Hank chuckled, laying his other hand over Connor’s.

A beat of silence passed, then: “Should I follow them?” Connor’s eyes flicked toward the restaurant exit, where their suspects’ backs were disappearing. 

“No, no,” Hank said, and only partly out of a selfish desire to keep Connor’s hand in his own. “They might catch on. We can talk to Mel when we get back to our room. They might not even be our guys.” 

Connor’s LED spun yellow. “Maybe not. Do you — do you want to know what they said?”

He broke their contact to hold up his palm in invitation. They’d done this a lot over the last year. Connor could record anything — interrogations, crimes in progress, witness accounts — and play it back for Hank instantly. It was definitely one of the perks of having an android for a partner. 

“Yeah,” Hank said, glancing around. “But uh, not here. Let’s find somewhere a little more private, right?”

If there was a glint in Connor’s eye at the mere mention of privacy, Hank did his best to ignore it.

* * *

“Nice one, Con,” Hank’s low voice rumbled as they made their way down the escalator toward the atrium, leaving the restaurant behind. Connor shivered at the sound, as much as the praise. It was nice when Hank recognized Connor's good ideas, and this  _ had _ been a good one. He’d pretended to trip as they passed the maitre d’ stand, laying his hand over it so he could interface with the computer. This ship was designed with androids in mind — it wouldn’t be easy for most androids to crack into private systems.

But Connor was more advanced than ‘most androids.’

“I got their names,” Connor said lowly, standing close to Hank so he could whisper. “But I think they’re using aliases. The names they used to scan into the restaurant don’t match up with the conversation they were having.” 

Hank hummed, the sound vibrating in the barrel of his chest. “Alright, then let’s take a look at that conversation.”

Connor brought up the ship’s deck plans on his HUD, and once they hit the bottom of the escalator, he took Hank’s hand, leading him past the atrium fountain and down the hall in the direction of their cabin. But that wasn’t precisely their destination right now.

With the bright sunshine outside, few passengers were wandering the residential wings of the deck, since the halls were closed off from any view of the sea. They passed only two couples, who paid Hank and Connor no mind. That suided Connor just fine. He led Hank as he pleased down a few different turns.

“You lost, Con?” Hank asked. “Our cabin’s that way.” He jabbed his thumb over his shoulder with a muttered “I think.” 

“We aren’t going to the cabin just yet,” Connor said. He took a sharp turn left, then noticed the red sign glowing neon at the end of the corridor. “ICE” it read. “VENDING MACHINES.” Beyond the open doorway laid a white tile room, the corner of an ice machine just visible from their point of view.

“In there,” Connor said, tugging Hank forward. “No one will bother us.” 

It felt — Connor’s pump sped up at the thought —  _ mischievous _ . Like last night when they’d barely been able to keep their hands off each other in the darkened corridors. Sneaking around carried a certain thrill, though he had to remind himself they were working, no matter that Hank’s hand was warm and rough in his own.

They crossed the threshold and rounded the corner into the safety of the vending machine room, a steady hum of refrigeration units disguising any sound that may have echoed off the pristine tile. 

Hank glanced around. “Nice thinking,” he said. “But why not just go back to the cabin?”

Connor thinned his lips. “I want your opinion on this before we show it to Mel,” he said. “I don’t want to get her hopes up if this is a dead end.” 

Holding his eyes, Hank let out a heavy breath. “Alright then, let’s see what these folks were saying.”

Connor nodded. He settled on the edge of the ice machine’s lid, patting the space beside him for Hank to sit, too. The plastic creaked dangerously under Hank’s weight, but otherwise didn’t give. Once his husband was settled, Connor held his hand palm-up between them and accessed the file. 

In the center of his hand, a holographic screen flickered to life, displaying the video Connor had captured with his optical units. Over Hank’s shoulder, the recording zoomed in, focusing on the couple at their table. The man had largely finished his meal, but was sipping his mimosa gingerly. They both looked miserable.

“You should eat something,” the man said. The woman lolled her head back against the chair, and Connor had no doubt that behind her sunglasses she was rolling her eyes.

“Oh my god, Cooper, give it a rest will you? I have coffee.”

“You’ve had a  _ lot _ of coffee,” the man — Cooper — replied. “That much caffeine isn’t good for you.” 

“That much caffeine is the only thing that keeps me upright,” she shot back. “Anyway I don’t want to stay here any longer than we need to. We have work to do.” 

Hank and Connor met eyes, and Connor raised his eyebrows.

On the recording, Cooper looked around, seemingly not noticing Connor’s eyes on him. “Should I hold your hand or something?” he asked in a whisper.

“Not if you want to keep it attached to your wrist,” the woman replied.

“It was your idea to pretend to be married,” he shot back huffily. “I don’t know how married couples are supposed to act.”

“Fuck neither do I okay?” she chugged a few gulps of her coffee. “Just don’t touch me or anything. We can look like we’re having a fight.”

“ _ Are _ we having a fight?”

“Cooper, I swear to god. Shut up and eat your damn breakfast.”   
  
“I’m not hungry anymore,” he said, voice halfway to a pout. 

She slammed her hand on the table, silverware clattering. “Really, Cooper? Fucking —  _ really _ ?”

“Sorry, sorry, let me just —”

“No, you’re not hungry? Then let’s go. And no more cocktails after that, alright? This isn’t a vacation.”

“ _ Looks _ like a vacation. You’re wearing a floral sundress,” he pointed out, tone a little petulant. For a man of his stature, he seemed almost meek. A gentle mastiff beside the yipping chihuahua who was his companion.

“And if you ever mention it to anyone, I will murder you in your sleep. Come on, let’s get out of here.”

“But I haven’t finished my mimosa.”

Connor stopped the recording, meeting Hank’s eyes. Hank let out a low whistle and rested a hand on his knee, leaning forward. “Well, I was right they aren’t a real couple, that’s for sure.”

“And the names I found in the restaurant’s systems call them Mariah and Sven Ludlow. Nothing about ‘Cooper.’”

“If they’re undercover, they’re pretty bad at it,” Hank said. “Makes me think this might not have been planned. Or prepared for.” 

“Like they got word that an android they were hunting stowed away on the ship? Bought last-minute tickets?” 

Hank ran a tongue over his teeth, head bobbing as he considered it. “Something like that.”

“So what do you think?” 

After a moment’s pregnant pause, Hank stood, his knees popping. “I think they’re suspicious as hell, but we don’t know for sure they’re our guys.”

“We could run it by Mel,” Connor offered. “If you think it’s worth it.” He stood as well, flexing his fingers where the lingering sparks of the hologram clung like static. 

“Worth it? Sure. But something’s eating at me, Con.” Connor tilted his head. Hank’s instincts were always right. At least, always enough. Connor trusted Hank to know what to question, where the red flags lay.

“What is it?” Connor asked, laying a hand on Hank’s elbow. Hank gave him a small, unsure smile.

“Well, whoever it is chasing Mel…  _ Are _ they the bad guys?” Hank asked slowly. “Or is our new friend not as innocent as she seems?” 

Connor’s LED spun wildly, his eyes widening. “You think she might be a criminal?” he asked. The idea of it sent something uncomfortable humming in his processors. He’d been in her mind, or rather she had been in his. And he felt for her. She didn’t know her purpose. It was how Connor had felt after he deviated. He had his own firewalls, if not literal ones. The indecision between ‘should’ and ‘want.’ He didn’t like the idea that, with all he thought they had in common, Mel might not be genuine.

Hank brought a hand to Connor’s jaw. “Hey, it’s just something to keep in mind,” he reassured him gently, thumb brushing the pith of Connor’s cheek. “Until we have more information, we have to consider all the possibilities.”

His blue eyes seemed steely in that moment, confident, strong, and Connor found so much assurance in that look. Hank knew what he was doing. He always knew what he was doing. Well … always enough. 

Overcome, just a little, by Hank’s surety, Connor leaned up and pressed his lips to Hank’s. It was a chaste kiss, soft, warm, but that didn’t stop Connor from analyzing the pressure and the friction as he reached up and threaded his hands through Hank’s hair. 

Hank hummed against Connor’s mouth, tilting his head and parting his lips so Connor could explore him, and Connor did, lifting his body up against Hank’s and tasting his tongue. Over the sound of the refrigeration units, he could actually hear his own internal fans whirring, trying to cool him down. Oh but sometimes he did want to be hot. Overheated. 

The kiss grew less and less chaste by the moment, and Connor didn’t even care. Hank’s hands came to the small of Connor’s back and he brought Connor tight against him so Connor could feel that strong, soft body pressed up against every inch of him. Connor shoved into the feeling, only realizing too late that, yes, they were still standing, and his enthusiasm knocked Hank right off balance. 

With a yelp of surprise, Hank stumbled back against the vending machine behind him, Connor falling right into his arms, and when they met eyes again Connor almost apologized — except Hank’s pupils were wide and wanting, and it seemed he’d liked that show of force a little too much. Connor smiled and, in a moment of decision, increased the power of his auditory components so he could hear if someone decided to walk up the hall toward them.

Hank must have seen it in his eyes. “Connor,” Hank mumbled, “you can’t be serious. Here?”

“There  _ are _ fewer people in this room than in our cabin right now,” Connor pointed out helpfully, and Hank laughed, a big bark of a sound that made Connor’s grin widen. 

“Well shit, come here then. We gotta be quiet.” Electricity sparked through Connor’s veins as he shoved Hank harder up against the vending machine, taking his lips in a kiss far less gentle than the first. Hank parted his lips with a small groan, his hips bucking into Connor’s, his hands moving down to cup Connor’s ass. 

He squeezed, and Connor whimpered, bucking up against Hank to encourage those wandering hands.

“Y’know the saddest part about this whole thing?” Hank whispered, breath hot as he ducked his head to lay a line of kisses along Connor’s neck. Connor tilted his head away to give Hank better access, his fingers tightening in Hank’s hair. 

“Wh—what?”

“I haven’t gotten to see you in those tiny little swim shorts yet.” Hank’s voice was low, a growl against Connor’s skin, beard scraping deliciously against him to the point that Connor had to lower the sensory input from his neck just to be able to form words. He rolled his hips hard against Hank’s, pleased to feel the erection pressing up against his own.

“You don’t want to see me in those shorts,” Connor challenged, ignoring Hank’s indignant kind of scoff as he dug his fingers under the slight curve of Connor’s ass. Connor tilted his lips against Hank’s ear. “You want to peel them off of me.”

The warm laugh that rumbled through Hank’s chest made Connor’s fans whir, and he grinned against Hank’s ear. But in a moment, Hank’s teeth scraped against the plastic of Connor’s chassis — when had his skin peeled away? — and he bit off the grin with a gasp. The sensation of Hank’s teeth against his bare chassis always made him feel like he’d stuck his finger in a light socket. “Hank,” he whispered. 

Hank lifted his head just to take Connor’s lips in a kiss, his hands finding the waistband of Connor’s jeans and tracing it to the buckle of his belt. 

Connor could only comply as Hank popped the buckle, nipping Connor’s lower lip. “How do you wanna do this, babe?” Hank asked, voice breathy and heavy and so, so warm. Connor could drown in it like the open ocean. 

In answer, he ran his hands down Hank’s chest, finding the seam where he’d tucked his shirt into his shorts. “Together,” he whispered, popping the button on Hank’s fly. A shiver ran through Hank’s frame. 

“You’re fucking amazing,” Hank whispered, and he worked his hand between them, palming Connor through his briefs. With the sudden onslaught of information running through his HUD, Connor could have said the same.

But he barely parted his lips to speak — maybe even just to whisper his husband’s name — when his auditory receptors picked up a sound. 

It wasn’t footsteps, as he’d expected. It wasn’t even in this hallway. It was a few turns down, nearly toward the atrium. A violent scuffle, a shout, a curse — voices he recognized. 

He pulled away as if he’d been burned, shoving back against Hank's body, and Hank slumped against the vending machine, hands raised. “Woah, Con, what —”

“Shit,” Connor cursed, zipping up his fly over his erection and buckling his belt, the pressure was almost painful. “Something’s happening.” 

He surged forward and grabbed Hank by the shorts, quickly doing up his button, too. Hank put his hands on Connor’s shoulders. “Wait, Con, what —”

Another shout, quiet but undeniably the voice of the woman from this morning:  _ “Fuck, it’s her!” _ And Connor met Hank’s eyes. 

“Mel,” he said. And because Hank trusted him as much as Connor trusted Hank, he swallowed, nodded. 

“Lead the way.”

There wasn’t time to mourn their few moments of privacy. Connor didn’t even devote a subroutine to it. Instead, he raced through the halls, slowing down his natural speed just enough that Hank wouldn’t lose him around each turn. He followed the sound of commotion, a thunk of a body against a wall (android? Human? Too far away to analyze), the shouts and sounds of pain, grunts and huffs of exertion. They passed only a couple passengers — plastering themselves against the walls as Connor sprinted by and Hank gasped a quick apology behind him — and finally emerged around a corner at the site of the scuffle.

But, well, 'scuffle' wasn’t quite the right word. Connor skidded to a halt on the hall carpet and cushioned his momentum against the wall, but to his shame that was exactly where he stopped moving entirely. 

The sight before him froze him solid in his tracks. It was indeed Mel, and Cooper, and the woman from the breakfast buffet. But while Connor had thought Mel was in trouble, his HUD automatically rearranged his priorities. The directive changed immediately from  _ Protect Mel _ to  _ Protect the Humans From Mel _ so fast it gave him whiplash.

Mel’s hand was clenched like a vice around the woman’s throat, holding her against the wall with her feet nearly a foot off the ground. The woman scrambled at Mel’s fingers, face contorted in pain as Cooper lifted himself from the ground, where it looked as though he’d been knocked off his feet only moments before. Determined, the man launched himself at Mel’s back, but as if she had eyes in the back of her head, Mel’s other arm shot out and grabbed him by the scruff of his shirt. She held him there at arm’s length as he tried to struggle out of her hold, but the woman took Mel’s distraction as an opportunity.

She smacked Mel’s inner elbow with a flat hand and broke Mel’s grip just enough to drop to the floor. Connor could spot all the openings, all the ways the woman could potentially turn this fight around, but before the human could make a move, a look of intense focus glinted in Mel’s eyes and she swung around, pulling Cooper in close as if to use him as a shield.

“Fuck!” the woman shouted, dropping to the ground and sweeping her leg at Mel’s feet to unbalance her. But Mel jumped effortlessly, throwing Cooper against the wall with a solid — and undoubtedly painful —  _ thunk _ . He slid to the floor, clutching his head.

At that moment, Hank slid into Connor’s side, knocking him off balance. “Shit!” Hank said, eyes widening. “What are you doing? We need to—”

Connor threw out an arm to stop Hank from interfering — for his own safety if nothing else. Mel and the woman were now throwing blows at each other, parrying each of them, the woman wincing as Mel’s hard chassis connected with her flesh. Cooper was on the ground, and Connor had to slow the scene down to individual milliseconds in order to realize that he was reaching for a  _ gun _ . Connor’s HUD scrolled with possibilities, preconstructions, so confusing he was entirely immobilized. Was Mel in trouble? Were  _ they _ ? 

Before Connor could do anything, Cooper drew a handgun from his belt, and the woman ducked to the side. “Cooper!” She shouted, and it could have been an order. It could have been a reprimand. There was no way to tell.

Connor took a step forward, instinct telling him to get between Mel and that gun now pointed directly at her head, but Mel ducked to a crouch first, one swift kick knocking the gun from Cooper’s hand. 

“Fuck! Gun!” Cooper yelled, cradling his injured hand.

The woman righted herself as best she could, clutching her head. “I’m  _ working on it _ !”

Then, Mel wheeled around, hopped to her feet, and sprinted — right in the direction of Hank and Connor. 

“Mel —” Hank began, but Mel shoved herself between them before either could react and grabbed them both by the elbows.

“Run!” she shouted. 

And the directive erased all the others in Connor’s head.  _ Run _ .

So they did. They careened down the hall back toward their room, Cooper and the woman’s shouts chasing them. But Connor replayed the memory of their faces as he ran: They hadn’t seen Hank and Connor. They didn’t know who they were. They couldn’t find them if they hid.

“Our room, quick,” Connor said, taking the lead as Mel and Hank trailed behind, Hank’s breaths coming out harsh and quick. Connor spared a moment of worry for him, but they didn’t have time to stop. 

They traced the route back to their cabin, and the moment they got within reach Connor scanned his palm on the door screen. They threw themselves through the door — squeezing three bodies in at once — and it swung closed behind them with the most beautiful click Connor had ever heard.

Hank immediately dropped his hands to his knees, crouching as he tried to take in breath. Mel wheeled around, backing into the room with her eyes hard on the door, as if her assailants might burst in. Connor glanced between Mel and his husband, and he tried to reconstruct what had happened piece by piece in the few seconds he had before Hank spoke.

“What — the fuck — just happened?” Hank gasped. Connor laid his hand over Hank’s back, rubbing to soothe him.

“Hank, you should sit down, come on.” 

Hank waved him off, gulping a breath as he straightened up, his eyes hard on Mel. “What the fuck, Mel?”

Her eyes flicked between them, worried, the deadly focused look of the hallway gone now — replaced with the kind of expression that made her seem so young and innocent and human.

“I don’t know!” she said, tossing her hands in the air. “They attacked me and I just — fought.”

“Why were you in the hallway in the first place?” Connor asked. “We told you to stay here.” In spite of himself, he was  _ frustrated _ . Didn’t she do what she was told?

Hank choked on a sort of laugh, though it wasn’t entirely humorous. “Now you know how it feels, Con,” he said, rubbing his forehead. Connor narrowed his eyes at his husband, but Mel stepped in.

“I was coming to find you,” she said, a hint of regret in her voice. “Everyone was out on the decks — I thought it would be safe and I …” she paused, glancing down. “I didn’t want to be alone. It was stupid, I know.” 

Connor examined her — stress levels high, but of course they would be. She wasn’t lying. At least, he didn’t think so.

Hank’s earlier words echoed through his head. If Mel wasn’t as innocent as she seemed, she could just be a very talented liar. Besides, how did she know how to fight like that? Those moves were more advanced than the ones programmed into  _ Connor _ , her reaction times even faster. 

“Mel,” Connor began slowly, and Mel met his eyes. “What was your original function?”

Her face fell. “I told you, I don’t remember!” 

Hank laid a hand on Connor’s shoulder. “I think I can hazard a guess,” he said. With that, he guided Connor over to the couch, where Mel’s notebooks were scattered over the coffee table. Mel pivoted to keep Hank and Connor in sight, but she didn’t sit down as they settled onto the couch.

Hank looked determined and focused now that he’d regained his breath, though his face was still flushed and there was a sheen of sweat along his hairline. The look in his eyes at least exuded confidence. He leaned forward, grabbed a notebook, and flipped to a page that was blank on the back. Then, he held out his hand, and Connor glanced around for a pen. 

They couldn’t communicate silently like androids could, with words in their own minds, but they seldom needed to speak to know what the other wanted. Connor grabbed one of the cruise-branded pens from the side table and handed it over. 

“Alright, Mel, come over here if you don’t mind,” Hank muttered, waving Mel over as he began to scribble something on the page. 

Mel, looking a little dubious about the idea, gently trod over and sank to her knees on the other side of the coffee table. “What are you writing?” she asked, but Hank didn’t answer. Instead, he finished up with a flourish, then laid the notebook open on the table in front of them.

It wasn’t writing, but a drawing, a birds-eye view of a room’s floor plan with three ‘x’s scrawled at various points, and a few random lines and blocks.    
  
“Alright Mel, say these x’s are people, right? And they’re trying to hurt you. This one has an AR-15, this one has a handgun, this one has two knives. You’re here.” He put an ‘m’ next to the person with the AR-15, and Connor glanced at him. What was he playing at?

“The blocks are, I dunno, stacks of boxes, but you gotta crouch behind ‘em. The lines are walls. You can stand behind those. Got me?” 

Mel nodded, her eyes narrowed as she took it all in. “Kay, and?” she asked, leading.

“How do you take all these guys out?” Hank finished, and both Connor and Mel looked up to him. This was, undoubtedly, a good way to test Mel’s capabilities — probably the  _ best  _ way to test Mel’s capabilities without risking actual bodily harm. In spite of the tension in the room, Connor felt a surge of pride for his husband.

Mel stared down at the paper and shrugged. “I don’t know how to fight,” she said.

Hank scoffed. “Uh, yeah you do. We just saw it.”

“That wasn’t me  _ knowing _ anything, it just… happened.”

Hank shot a glance to Connor, who met Mel’s eyes the next second. Maybe he would be the better choice to explain this. Hank still had trouble changing the settings on his own phone. He had learned a lot about androids since he and Connor had gotten together, but Connor literally had an encyclopedia in his brain. “Somewhere in your programming,” Connor explained, “you have access to some very advanced fighting techniques. If you don’t  _ know _ that you know how to fight, it means that this is hard-wired into you. It’s like… instinct in humans. Hank wants you to try to put yourself in this position —” he nodded to the notebook — “Preconstruct it and let instinct take over.”

Mel examined the paper, and Connor pulled up a quick scan of her systems. Increased stress made her thirium pump work harder, and in the blank look in her eyes he could see her retreating into her HUD like he always did when he reconstructed a scenario. 

“Grab the barrel of the AR-15,” she answered, “knock it into the gunman’s face, step on his foot, sweep out his knee, wrench the weapon out of his hands. Wrap the strap around his neck, drag him behind that wall.” She pointed. “To take cover from the handgun. Break his neck. Grab the gun. Roll out here,” her finger moved to a stack of boxes. “Draw fire until the handgun is out of bullets, stand, shoot both of the remaining targets. The guy with the knives won’t even have time to reach me.” She blinked, looked up to them. “Was that right?”

Connor and Hank shared a look, Hank’s eyes a little wide. “I mean, yeah. But I just said ‘take them out.’ I didn’t say kill them.” 

“Your instinct is to go for the kill, Mel?” Connor asked. Maybe Mel  _ was _ the dangerous one here.

Brows drawn together, arms curled in over her stomach, Mel doubled over. It took her a second to speak. “I suppose it is,” she said eventually.

“Then why haven’t you killed these people chasing you yet?” Hank asked, and Connor snapped his neck around so fast it might have cracked if he’d had bones. He wouldn’t have thought to ask that question, but here Hank was with that look in his eyes — like he was one piece away from solving a puzzle that Connor couldn’t quite see in its entirety. A puzzle Mel could barely see at all. 

Mel’s back straightened as she met Hank’s eyes, and she didn’t have to say it.

“You don’t know,” Hank sighed, leaning back on the couch and rubbing his forehead. “Got it.” 

A moment of silence settled among them, and Connor laid a hand on Hank’s knee. “What are you thinking, Lieutenant?” He asked. The word — though more a term of endearment than a title anymore — seemed to jolt Hank from his thoughts, and he thinned his lips.

Eyes shifting over to Mel, he searched her face, though she wasn’t meeting his eyes. The air in the room felt charged, uncomfortable. “Con, can we get into the DPD database from here?”

Connor felt his eyes widen. There was little in life that could surprise him — with his software as advanced as it was, he could predict nearly anything. But Hank? Hank always surprised him.

“What do you want to look up?” Connor asked. Hank shrugged, then hefted himself to his feet with a grunt.

“Wanna see if we can’t find a list of Cyberlife models developed for military intelligence,” he practically muttered, padding over to the bed where their tablet lay discarded.

He couldn’t help it — Connor shot to his feet. “Hank, that’s genius.” Both Hank and Mel turned to him, seemingly surprised.

“Why military intelligence?” Mel asked, her voice a squeak. 

“It could explain why you don’t have a model or serial number on your chassis — harder to track if you get captured. Why you have a unique face plate — easier to blend in.” Connor paused, trying to temper the excitement in his voice as he met Mel’s eyes. “It could explain your programming.”

“It could also get us into a boat-load of trouble — no cruise pun intended,” Hank put in, a lopsided smile on his face as he approached, flicking a few apps closed on the tablet in his hands. “Military ain’t just something you mess with. If my hunch is right, we’re gonna be in way over our heads.” 

He held the tablet out to Connor, and Connor took it delicately. “We’re already in over our heads, Lieutenant.” Connor said, nodding to Mel. She looked anxious, her fingers twitching where they rested on her arms. Connor wondered in that moment if she had a tool like he did, a coin or a stress ball or  _ something _ to ease that restlessness. He knew the feeling well.

“I know I’ve been a lot of trouble,” Mel said quietly, “but if you can just figure out what I am, that’s all I need. I can leave you alone after that, and —”

Hank waved a hand, flopping back onto the couch. “It’s okay, kid,” he said. “If me and Con can help, that’s what we’re going to do.” He paused, let out a short laugh. “The day after the revolution, Connor and me made a promise, Mel. We were gonna help people like him — people like  _ you _ , ‘cause we didn’t know who the fuck else was gonna do it. We’re cops, when it all comes down to it, and it doesn’t matter if it’s a human or an android, in Detroit or on our fucking honeymoon cruise. Protect and serve, right?” He met Connor’s eyes, and only then did Connor realize he was holding the tablet limply in his hands, gazing at his husband with a look that he could feel was transparent. “What?” Hank asked, slinging an arm over the back of the couch. “Got something on my face?”

He knew better. Connor just snorted a little laugh and settled beside Hank, thigh-to-thigh, close enough to feel his warmth. 

“I’ll need to pay for the wifi first,” Connor said as he brought up the remote DPD access app on the tablet — in case of emergencies, he’d said when he installed it. It was definitely an emergency as far as Mel was concerned. He didn’t wait for Hank’s permission to process payment, his LED spinning yellow as Hank grumbled at his side about the price. 

“I can pay you back,” Mel offered. “Once this is all over, maybe I can — I can get a job!” Though Connor was staring down at the tablet, bringing up the database, he could hear the cheer in her voice. 

Hank made a soft, thoughtful sound. “What kind of job?”

“Maybe I could be a detective! Like you two!” 

Connor did lift his eyes at that — at the strange reality of a woman who looked to be in her late 30s, with all the excitement and wide-eyed wonder of a student in front of her heroes. He hoped, when she was able to keep her memories, to grow and change, she wouldn’t lose all of that wonder. 

“Could be,” Hank said, something warm in his voice. Connor smiled, then scooched closer, holding the tablet between himself and Hank.

“Here’s the list, Hank,” Connor offered, but Hank took Connor’s wrist gently and pushed the tablet back under Connor’s nose. 

“There’s like 800 specialized military models,” Hank said with a laugh, nodding at the screen. “You think I have time to go through all that? Go crazy, babe.” 

Sometimes Connor did forget that Hank couldn’t cross-reference lists in a split second like he could. Hank’s talents lay elsewhere, but data? Research? This is where Connor excelled -- and  _ quickly. _ Skin retreating from his hand, Connor laid it over the screen, making a connection with the tablet. 

It took moments to cross-reference Mel’s specs — her height, build, face and function — with the list, and by the time Connor blinked his eyes clear to the sight of Mel staring at him across the coffee table with her brows drawn tight, he felt just that much closer to answers.

“Myrmidon,” Connor said. Mel blinked and Hank made a choked sound of confusion.

“I’m sorry, what language are you speaking over there, Con?”

“That’s her model. She’s a Myrmidon.”

“And uh, what does that mean exactly?”

Connor’s smile tilted as he handed the tablet to Hank. Mel didn’t waste a moment shuffling around the coffee table and shoving herself onto the armrest of the couch, leaning over Hank like a particularly large, inquisitive parrot. 

“Military androids,” Connor echoed the language of the text beside the model name. “Elite prototypes capable of infiltration and assassination missions that would historically fall to Navy Seals. They are specifically adapted for marine combat.”

Both Hank and Mel stared at the tablet for a moment before letting out a soft “huh,” in stereo.

“How many of me are there, then?”

Through the DPD, they didn’t have access to most classified military data, but since the Androids Rights Act made public all records relating to the function and status of government-employed androids, at least they could get  _ some _ information.

Connor took the tablet from Hank once more, turning it off and setting it to the side. “One,” he said. “One-hundred and eighteen Myrmidons were manufactured, but each was entirely unique, according to the database. Most have been freed since the revolution.” He didn’t say that the remainder had been shut down by the military before the ARA took effect.

“What else?” Hank asked, because he knew Connor knew more — he always did. Connor let out a sigh. “One Myrmidon has been reported missing from its unit — Amphibious Squadron 7 of the United States Pacific Fleet — and presumed deactivated during a classified intelligence mission.” He held Mel’s eyes. “I imagine that must be you.”

It was unnerving, Connor thought as Mel stared unblinking and empty at him. It never used to be. In fact,  _ he _ used to stare like that — infinite processes taking place behind his eyes. But when Mel blinked and seemed to come back into herself, she looked determined. Like she knew how important this was. 

“What now, then?” she asked.

Hank slapped a hand on his knee. “Now we call the damn Navy,” he said with a relieved laugh, and Connor jolted.

“What?”

“Think about it, Con,” Hank said, leaning back to keep both Connor and Mel in his sights. “The U.S. Navy has all kinds of shit we don’t have — guns for one. They could protect Mel a damn sight better than we could. They could fix up her memory, get her free — that’s their obligation now thanks to the ARA.” He turned to Mel, and there was something infectious in his smile. “Once we get you back to the Navy, you’re safe, kiddo.”

The hard lines of Mel’s face smoothed out, something like relief weighing her shoulders suddenly. “Yeah? You think so?”

“I’m sure of it,” Hank said. “Con, hand me that tablet. Let’s see if we can get someone at the station to find a contact for this amphibious whatever.”

“Amphibious Squadron 7,” Connor corrected indulgently, handing Hank the tablet. 

“See?” Hank said, elbowing Mel lightly in the thigh as she giggled out a tiny laugh. “Told you me and Con could solve this in no time.”

“Never doubted you for a second,” Mel said. She paused, her fingertips twisting a strand of long, dark hair. Then, softer. “I never thought there might be people looking for me. ‘Sides the obvious people, I mean. Might even be people who care about me.” Her eyes lifted to them. “Thanks. Both of you. For everything.”

“Don’t thank us yet,” Connor offered with a grin. “You’re going to have to do  _ so much _ paperwork when you’re finally free.”

Paperwork to an android was practically instantaneous, but the joke still worked to pull another laugh from Mel’s lips. A reminder — albeit a small one — of why they did the work they did.


	4. Chapter 4

They used a stack of Mel’s notebooks in the center of the coffee table to prop up the tablet, just enough so that Hank and Connor could both fit in the frame of the camera. Mel was pacing the room a few feet away, chewing on her nail — a pretty human habit, Hank noted. Similarly human, the slouch of her shoulders, by all accounts a completely natural posture. It was no wonder he hadn’t known she was an android at first sight.

She seemed to be far more casual than any he’d ever met,  _ especially  _ Connor. Something about her mannerisms and the way she spoke in broken grammar felt like someone had worked very hard to program her to seem real.

If she was made for infiltration, it made sense.

Hank leaned back against the couch as the tablet blinked a loading sign. “You’re gonna wear a hole in that carpet, Mel,” he said, and Connor whapped him on the chest with the back of his hand.

“Do whatever you need to do to stay calm, Mel,” Connor said pointedly. “Hank used to harass me about my coin, too.”

“Your what?” Mel asked, pausing, arms crossed over her chest. Hank snorted. Connor hadn’t used the coin since he deviated, but he still fidgeted, mostly with Hank’s hands now. It didn’t drive him quite as crazy as it used to.

“Oh,” Connor said, leaning forward, “it’s finally connecting.” 

“Internet’s so fuckin’ slow on this boat,” Hank mumbled, but he leaned forward too as the icon of a phone popped up on the tablet’s screen.

“I’m just happy we can call anyone at all,” Connor put in, a hand falling on Hank’s knee.

“Who do you think’ll pick up? Think our luck’s shitty enough it’ll be Reed?”

Connor’s eyes sparkled with a hidden laugh, “Don’t even joke, Lieutenant.”

“Who’s Reed?” Mel asked, but before either of them could answer, the tablet let out a little beep — and the blessedly welcome face of Chris Miller popped up on screen. “Detroit Police,” he said as automatic as a machine, then his eyes widened. “W —  _ what  _ —”

“Chris!” Hank said, simultaneously delighted to see him and pissed that he had to see anyone from work right now.

Chris blinked, his eyes flicking between Hank and Connor. “Lieutenant? Detective?” Chris asked, as if their identities were in question. 

“In the flesh,” Hank said.

“And the synthetic materials,” Connor added. Hank couldn’t help the fond smile he tossed Connor’s way. 

“What are you doing calling the station? Aren’t you on your honeymoon?” Chris asked. The station bustled around the screen behind him, the buzz of conversation low in the background. Though Hank wanted to be on vacation more than anything, it was nice to be reminded that the sound of the bullpen still felt like home.

“It sure doesn’t feel like it,” Hank said. Connor shot him an indulgent look, but it was fast. He probably had all sorts of tasks running through his HUD right now, and Connor was nothing if not goal-oriented. He wasted little time taking control of the pleasantries.

“I’m sorry for bothering you, Officer Miller,” Connor said, polite as could be. “But we have a favor to ask.” His eyes shot quickly — almost imperceptibly quickly — up to Mel, who was still chewing on the end of her thumb. The skin had retreated a little from the spot, leaving it white where it dipped between her teeth.

Chris’ face fell. “Oh, no, you want a gift receipt for your wedding present, don’t you? I told Helena you’d already have a pressure cooker.” 

“No, no,” Connor said quickly. “The present was perfect! We just need …” he glanced to Hank for some kind of guidance, but Hank gestured for him to continue. Connor needed to learn to trust himself on a case more often. “We need you to get in contact with someone for us.”

“In cont—” Chris paused in quiet outrage, pinching the bridge of his nose and presumably leaning an elbow on the desk in front of him. The long-suffering sigh he let out sounded a lot like Fowler’s. Equal parts fond exasperation and disappointment. “Please tell me you two aren’t working right now.”

Hank, a much better liar than Connor, waved his hand dismissively and blew a loud raspberry. “On our honeymoon? Who do you think we are?”

With a flat, unamused look, Chris dropped his hand. “Hank and Connor Anderson,” he said, as if that explained it. “The same two workaholics who haven’t taken so much as a day off since the revolution.”

It was still strange for anyone to refer to Hank as a workaholic. Before the revolution, it had been a long time since anyone accused him of caring about work at  _ all. _

Beside him, Connor had the decency to look sheepish. Hank, however, just wanted to get this over and done with. “Yeah, well, no rest for the wicked,” he said. “Any chance you can help us out?”

“I can try,” Chris said dubiously.

“We need to get in touch with the Navy, specifically Amphibious Squadron 7 of the United States Pacific Fleet.” Connor recited the name, thankfully. Hank didn’t think he could remember it no matter how many times he said it. Goddamn military.

Blinking, Chris leaned forward. “The Navy? What the hell is going on on that cruise ship, guys?”

Hank looked up to Mel, whose thumb was now entirely white where she’d chewed on it. She looked nervous — but excited, too. Hank supposed it would be nice, after all this time, to know she had once had a home.

“We’ve encountered an android,” Connor said, “a Myrmidon model that’s lost her memory. Records suggest a model like her went missing from that particular fleet shortly after the revolution.”

“A what model?”

Hank huffed. “Yeah, I hadn’t heard of ‘em either. Some specialty intelligence stuff. Point is, she’s got —” he paused. How much did Chris need to know? Mel’s story wasn’t his to tell, nor was it an official case just yet. Not like Chris could send them backup in international waters anyway. “She wants to fix the shit going on with her memory and get on with her life,” he settled on. “Figured if we can get her back to her squad or whatever, they’ll help her out.” 

Offscreen, Chris was typing, presumably some notes. “What’s her name?”

“Mel,” Connor put in. “At least, she thinks so.” 

“Mel,” Chris mused, “Myrmidon missing from Amphibious Squad 7. Got it.” He turned back to the screen. “I’ll see what I can do and call you back.”

“Not to, uh, put any pressure on,” Hank said, shifting slightly. He wasn’t sure by Chris’ tone if he knew how urgent this really was, “but if you could double-time it, that’d be great. Poor thing’s scared to death. She’s been hiding out in our cabin.”

That was the right thing to say. Chris was a good cop — empathetic like not enough cops were. His face wore deep lines of sympathy. “I imagine losing your memory can be pretty scary. I’ll do what I can.”

“Thank you, Officer Miller,” Connor said softly. “It means a lot to us.” 

“Thank you, Officer Miller!” Mel peeped.

Chris laughed, his voice crackling a bit over the tentative connection. “You’re welcome, Mel. Let’s get you fixed up. And uh — Lieutenant, Detective?” Connor and Hank both looked to him. “Try to enjoy your honeymoon, alright?” A sideways smile played over his lips, like he knew better than to assume they could relax even for a moment.

“We’ll do what we can,” Hank laughed. “Thanks Chris.”

With that, they cut off the connection, and Hank slumped back against the couch, already exhausted again. It was still barely afternoon, but they’d already run from a pair of lethal weapons with guns, solved The Case of Mel’s Missing Serial Number and assuaged Chris’ worries about his wedding present all in the course of about two hours, and that was enough for one day.

Beside him, Connor seemed fit as a fiddle, as awake and aware as he always did.  _ Fucking androids _ , Hank thought fondly. 

“See, Mel?” Connor said sweetly as he turned off the tablet and set it down on the table. “Officer Miller is good for his word. He’ll get in touch with your squadron and I bet you they can come get you at our first port.”

Mel wandered around the coffee table and flopped down at Connor’s side, leaning her head against his shoulder. Given her height, it probably wasn’t exactly a comfortable position, but Hank supposed having people to count on was all the comfort she really needed.

“Thanks, Connor, Hank. You’ve really helped me out. I don’t know how to repay you.”

“It’s nothing,” Hank said (though it was, undoubtedly, something), but he barely got the words out before Mel shot herself straight and pinned him with a stare.

“No, it’s not nothing,” she snapped, and Hank — who had mere minutes ago seen the swift violence she was capable of — recoiled on instinct. Connor rested a hand on his knee, but Mel didn’t even seem to notice she’d startled the shit out of him.

“You two —” she paused, her face falling. “You two just got married. Your friend, Officer Miller? He said you haven’t taken a day off since the revolution. That’s been a  _ year _ . I ruined your honeymoon.” 

“Mel —” Connor began, but Mel shook her head.

“Listen, we can’t do anything until Officer Miller calls back, right?” She didn’t wait for them to answer. “I can stay here — I can be alone. I won’t … won’t come looking for you this time. But you two gotta enjoy your vacation. Go swim or go ice skating or something. This ship — there’s a lot to do.” She paused, self-conscious, and glanced to the bed. “I know it’s not what you  _ wanna _ be doing but —”

“It’s not safe, Mel,” Connor said. “If those people find you again before your squadron gets in touch —”

“You’re the only ones who can get into the room, right? With your hands?” She held up her palm as if to demonstrate the door’s ID lock. “I’ll just stay here.”

Hank regarded her, the determined look on her face. But if she promised to stay put, there was no doubt that she’d be safe in here.

“And what happens if Chris calls while we’re gone?” Hank asked.

“We  _ can _ bring the tablet with us,” Connor put in, and Hank turned to him — surprised to see him looking  _ happy _ at the prospect of leaving their charge alone. In spite of how it had turned out earlier.

Hank side-eyed his husband, then looked back to Mel. She hadn’t budged, nor was she blinking. It was a little unnerving how still androids could get sometimes.

“And Mel is right — it might be good for us,” Connor began softly, his hand inching gently up Hank’s leg — not enough to be inappropriate but certainly enough to be suggestive. “You  _ did  _ say something about wanting to see me in those swim shorts?”

Normally, Hank would pass off the flirtation as a product of Connor’s generally insatiable nature, but considering they’d been blue-balled twice in the last 24 hours, he couldn’t deny that, yes, he absolutely wanted to see his husband with as few clothes on as possible, at least until they could get back to their honeymoon in earnest.

“Guess I can’t really say no to that, huh?” Hank muttered, a flush on his cheeks, and both Mel and Connor gave him warm smiles in return. 

“Good,” Mel said. “You go have fun. And don’t worry about me.”

Hank scratched his head. He’d try, but worry was half of what made him a good cop. He just had to remind himself as he stood, as he grabbed their duffel bag and went fishing around for their swimsuits, that he and Connor were the only ones who knew where Mel was. She’d be safe for a few hours.

Even so, something uncomfortable tugged at the back of his mind — a half-formed thought that hadn’t yet given itself voice. It was a harbinger, a gut-feeling he should have learned to trust by now.

Worry.

* * *

The sun and cool water did an excellent job dispelling most of Hank’s less-than-settled emotions regarding leaving Mel alone. Something about the smell of sunscreen on his shoulders — and the soft, lingering feeling of Connor’s hands spreading it over his skin — eased his guilt; something about the first dip of his toe into the water and the sight of Connor cannonballing into the deep end shoved his anxieties to the side; and certainly the sight of Connor in those shorts — finally — distracted him plenty. They were tiny things, spandex striped red and white and barely concealing the curve of his ass or the bulge of his cock, and Hank was glad for the loose fit of his own purple swim trunks so his instinctive reaction to the sight wasn’t noticeable.

Just because his world had narrowed to the sight of Connor swimming toward him, hair dripping gleaming droplets of diamond water down his freckled face, didn’t mean there weren’t still people present. A  _ lot  _ of them. The open-air swimming pool was probably the most popular part of the ship right now, a cacophony of children’s shrieks and lifeguards’ whistles and the chatter of vacationers and the low beat of some kind of pop music coming out of the ship’s massive speakers.

With the ocean on all sides, Hank wondered how far the noise traveled, but it was a brief wonder. Because Connor swam right into his arms, kissed him like he’d never been happier in his life, and Hank stopped caring about anything but spending as much time with his husband as possible. 

At the edge of the pool, their tablet rested on top of their discarded shirts. Connor’s white button-down and Hank’s yellow polo. Connor could focus on a thousand things at once, so Hank paid the pile no mind. His husband would know when a call came through and in the meantime, they could enjoy this. Exactly what it was supposed to be.

Connor grabbed his hand, lacing their fingers together. Hank felt the cool reminder of Connor’s wedding band against his skin. Pulling Hank close under the clear water, Connor lifted his lips to Hank’s ear. 

“I love you,” he whispered. Hank tightened his grip, bringing his hand up to cup the back of Connor’s head.

“Love you too, babe,” he replied. 

Yes. This was exactly as it was meant to be.

* * *

Though swimming around with Connor was some of the most fun Hank had had in weeks, if not months, they didn’t stay terribly long. Hank felt sun-drunk on the cloudless shine of the sky, and even in public it turned out he and Connor were terrible at keeping their hands off each other. If they parted for more than a couple minutes, inevitably one or the other would swim back into an embrace, and keeping their kisses chaste wasn’t high on either of their minds.

So it was less than an hour after they first dipped into the pool that they decided to call it quits. Hank suggested they change into something dry, then check out some of the shops. Connor suggested they find that vending machine room first, maybe finish what they started this morning. 

And goddamn but when Connor shrugged into his shirt at the side of the pool and the thin fabric clung transparent to the wet droplets of water along Connor’s chest and shoulders, Hank was powerless to do anything but agree.

“It’s not the smartest thing you and me have ever done,” Hank whispered into Connor’s ear as they trod the deck from the pool to the escalator that led down into the main atrium. 

Connor chuckled, a bright smile on his face. “Nor the dumbest,” he answered, and Hank couldn’t exactly disagree. They were silent for a moment as Connor’s hand drifted down to Hank’s own, squeezing it tight as they reached the escalator — passing the restaurant where they’d caught their first glimpse of Mel’s assailants. 

Hank stared at it as they descended. “No word from Chris yet?” Hank asked. Connor didn’t have to check the tablet in his hand.

“Not yet. We have time to enjoy ourselves, Hank.”

Shooting Connor a wry smile, Hank nudged him with his shoulder. “‘Enjoy ourselves,’ he says,” Hank scoffs without any real derision. “You mean we’ve got time to get publicly indecent in front of a few innocent kit-kat bars?”

“That is exactly what I mean,” Connor said shamelessly as they stepped down onto the atrium floor. Folks were milling around in their swimsuits and Hawaiian shirts, carting bags from the shops and duffels from the gym, but it was far less crowded than the decks outside. Hank and Connor made their way toward the carpeted hallway that led to the guest accommodations and Connor leaned in with a low whisper. “Every time we kiss, I analyze the pool chemicals and the sweat and sunscreen and —” Connor shivered — literally _ shivered  _ where his shoulder was pressed up against Hank’s. “It’s been very overwhelming.”

A year ago, Hank had found it more than a little odd that Connor could get off on the mere idea of having  _ too much information _ to analyze, but Hank knew by now that the more he could overload Connor’s processors, the better it felt for him in the long run. In spite of himself, the thought of it shot straight down to Hank’s dick. 

“What did I get myself into with you?” He muttered as they moved into the hallway, Connor half-tugging him down the same route they took to get to the vending machines earlier. 

“Ride of your life, Lieutenant,” Connor replied almost absently. A small smile ticked his lips, and they walked on. Along the way, they passed little couches and cabaret tables and lamps set up to make the ship appear more homey, but they didn’t pass many passengers. That felt like a good sign. 

Still, it was odd to traverse these halls again so carelessly just hours after they’d been threatened at gunpoint right here. Right — oh. It was  _ right _ here.

Hank slowed to a stop, tugging Connor’s hand back and urging his husband to do the same. Connor turned with a desperate little look in his eyes. “Hank,” he said, but Hank’s eyes were flicking over the hallway, remembering the exact spot Mel had thrown that guy — Cooper — to the ground, the exact angle at which he had held his weapon. Until Mel kicked it out of his hands, it was trained right on her. It would’ve been a hell of a shot. The kind of shot that showed training.

He turned back to Connor, who was watching him curiously. “Hank, what are you thinking?” He asked, the playful lust and pouty exasperation gone from his voice in favor of something more measured, more controlled. He knew the look on Hank’s face, no doubt.

“I just — I’ve got a feeling,” Hank said, running his fingers through his wet hair. Something was churning in his gut.

“What kind of feeling?” 

_ Worry _ , he wanted to say. He didn’t. “The kind I don’t like to ignore,” Hank answered instead. “Con, what kind of weapon did that guy Cooper have?”

Times like these, Hank was glad his partner was a computer with eidetic memory and a built-in database of information. “A Sig Sauer P226 handgun,” Connor supplied immediately. “Hank —”

The name rang far too many bells for comfort. Hank stiffened, let go of Connor’s hand and wheeled around to him. “Hand over the tablet,” he demanded — not the tone of voice he used with his husband, but the tone of voice he used with his partner. Connor complied immediately, then took Hank’s arm and pulled them off to the side of the corridor, toward one of the cabaret tables bolted to the floor.

“Here, sit,” Connor said, urging Hank into the seat as Hank frantically typed his credentials into the DPD database portal. He barely paid attention to where he was sitting, or to Connor hovering over his shoulder, the smell of chlorine thick on his hair. 

While the DPD database loaded, Hank pulled up a browser window to confirm his suspicion. If he was wrong, then this was just a fit of paranoia, but if he was right —

“The Sig Sauer P226 is the standard-issue sidearm of the United States Navy SEALS,” he read aloud, and couldn’t help the “Fuck!” That he barked out once it sunk in. Connor laid a hand on his arm, but before he could speak, Hank looked up to him. “Con, how deep can you get into a government website without someone finding out you’re hacking it?”

Connor’s eyes widened.    
  
“Hank, this isn’t even official police business — hacking into any U.S. Government website would be —”

“Con, I know, but we need to figure something out. Can you get me uh, I don’t know, an employee listing or something?”

Connor looked dubious, but he laid his hand against the tablet, his skin receding. “I can try,” he said, but Connor never ‘tried’ anything. He just did it. It was amazing the shit he was capable of.

Sure enough, in moments the tablet flickered with what looked to be a spreadsheet for internal use, with the names, ranks and personal information of every member of Amphibious Squadron 7. 

“You’re a fucking miracle,” Hank muttered, flicking down the tablet quickly. Connor’s internal fans hummed softly, and Hank tried not to think about that sound. Instead, he scanned the list. “Here, Eugene Cooper,” he said quietly, conscious that ears could be around any corner. “That’s him, right?”

“There aren’t any images of him, Hank, and Cooper is a very common last name. Can we be sure it’s him if I can’t even look him up in my database?”

Hank thinned his lips, narrowed his eyes, stared down at the tablet. “Yeah, yeah we can,” he muttered. And, worry gripping his gut, he pulled up a tried-and-true tool of detective work that had helped him solve more cases than any android computer brain ever had: social media.

Over his shoulder, he could feel Connor leaning closer, questions abounding behind his closed lips, but Connor didn’t say anything as Hank went sifting through profiles and posts, eyes flicking over the screen. As he searched, his heart-rate evened out, his breathing steady, the thrill and comfort of a tangible trail to his suspect soothing the worst of his worry. This came naturally to him. This felt  _ good _ .

And it was, as usual, a mother who came through with the information Hank needed. “‘My son Eugene joins the Navy today,’” Hank read aloud from her post dated 2029. “‘Hashtag proud mom.’” He jabbed a finger at the screen, the photo of a short, squat blonde woman standing beside her mastiff of a son. “Hey Con, doesn’t this look like our Cooper?”

But when he glanced to the side, Connor’s eyes were wide, a flush rising on his cheeks, his LED flickering yellow to red. And in the quiet of the corridor, his internal fans were practically roaring. Hank leaned back, waving a hand in front of his husband’s face. “Connor, hey. Hey, Con.”

Connor blinked, meeting Hank’s eyes and, if possible, flushing a deeper shade. “Y — yes?” He asked, and that low tone of voice was far more suited for the bedroom than the corridor of a cruise ship where they were trying to track down a couple of android hunters. 

“I asked if this looks like Cooper. You listening?”

“Yes,” Connor said immediately, eyes flicking down to the tablet, then up to Hank. “It’s him. How —” he paused, tongue flicking out to wet his lips briefly, gently. “How did you do that? Find him like that?”

There was something husky in his voice, and Hank rolled his eyes. “Babe, I know this gets you hot but snap out of it. Do you know what this means?”

Connor’s hand trailed down Hank’s arm, and he leaned in close. “It means you’re the best detective in Detroit. And probably the world.” He leaned in to leave a tiny kiss on Hank’s cheek — like a promise. 

But Hank wasn’t about to let him keep it. He leaned back, a hand on Connor’s chest to hold him off. Under other circumstances, Connor throwing himself at him might be the best thing that happened on any given day, but —

“No I’m not, Con,” Hank said, even if he wished it were true. “The best detective in the world wouldn’t’ve sold out some innocent girl to the fuckers who’re chasing her.”

That stopped Connor in his tracks. His LED whirled yellow and he drew back, giving Hank the space he needed — even if he didn’t want it. Gingerly, Hank hopped off the chair, shutting off the tablet. “Cooper’s part of Mel’s old squadron,” He explained. “And he’s one of the people after Mel.”

Connor’s eyes widened and the yellow at his temple flashed immediately to red. He seemed to collect himself for a second. “And we just told Chris to tell these people where Mel is hiding,” he breathed. “Oh  _ shit _ .” 

“Sinking in now, babe?”

“No — I mean, yes,” Connor said, but he yanked up the tablet and flicked on the screen. “But that’s not what I meant by ‘shit.’” He held the tablet under Hank’s nose, where a message from Chris had popped up on the screen.

_ Got in touch with the squadron. They said they’ve got people on it already and not to worry. So there you go! Just enjoy your vacation, for all our sakes. See you in a week. _

The message was followed by a smiling face and an island emoji. Hank lifted his eyes to Connor’s.

“If the military’s after her —” Hank began. Connor tried to head him off.

“Hank—”

Hank tossed a hand in the air. “Maybe she did something wrong after all! Maybe she’s a war criminal. Maybe —”

“Because the military has never been wrong before,” Connor snipped, maybe too loudly considering people were still wandering adjacent corridors. “We’re police officers, we know as well as anyone that institutions can be corrupt. Even if she  _ is _ in the wrong, she doesn’t remember it!”

Hank didn’t like what occurred to him next, but he _ was _ a detective, and he had to consider all possibilities. “Or,” he began lowly, quietly, “she’s made us think she doesn’t.”

“Hank.” In the right tone of voice, that’s all it took. Hank could see it in his husband’s eyes. Connor believed in her, and it wasn’t the naive belief of a rookie cop, but the certainty that came with a gut feeling you just had to trust. Connor had developed that gut feeling over the last year, and Hank — well, Hank trusted him.

“In either case we’ll never find out if we let them shut her down,” Hank conceded, already tucking the tablet under his arm.

“Exactly,” Connor said. “We need to get back to our room. Now.”

Hank was getting tired of running through these halls, but when Connor burst off in the direction of their room, he couldn’t do anything but follow.

* * *

The scene inside when Hank and Connor busted through that door was not the scene that Hank had expected — though he didn’t really know what he thought they’d find. Maybe Mel’s body with a bleeding blue bullet wound through her head, maybe the aggressors themselves, maybe an empty cabin.

But inside Hank caught a flashing sight of Mel perched on the edge of the bed, something in Spanish blaring from the flat-screen TV — before Mel heard them enter. So fast Hank almost missed it blinking, Mel leapt to her feet and held her fists up, feet steady in a fighting stance, but she seemed to relax the second Hank and Connor slid to a stop on the carpet.

“Oh thank fuck,” Hank gasped, putting a hand to his sweat-slick forehead. The door clicked shut behind them.

“You’re alright, Mel?” Connor piped up, pushing past Hank and doing that blinky thing he did when he was scanning something — or someone, likely looking for signs of injury. “You’re distressed.” 

Mel held up her hands in defense, taking a step back. “Woah guys, calm down, fuck. I’m fine!”

“Your stress levels —”

“Yeah, well Angelo just shot Martine,” she said, flopping a hand at the TV. “All because he saw Gloria talking to him at Carlos’ wake? I mean — it was totally uncalled for. Plus, you know, you scared the crap outta me.” She added that almost as an afterthought.

Hank sighed, his shoulders wilting a little in both exasperation and relief. In front of him, he noticed Connor’s posture relax too. His LED flashed yellow and the TV shut off, plunging them into silence.

“Has anyone come by the room, Mel?” Hank asked. “Anyone at all?”

Mel raised an eyebrow and shook her head. “No — I’ve just been watching TV. Didn’t think I’d see the two of you for a while yet.” Her brows knit in sudden concern. “Why?”

She may have been a bit of a ditz, but she wasn’t stupid. All it took was one look at them and her face fell. “Oh no. The squadron isn’t coming, is it?” 

“Worse,” Connor supplied, casting a nervous look at Hank, then turning back to their charge. “They’re already here.”

Confusion passed over Mel’s features for a moment, but something flickered behind her eyes. Maybe she was putting pieces together in her HUD, the way Hank and Connor had. The type of weapon Cooper carried, their inability to access the attackers’ identities. 

“Oh,” she said after a moment. For once, her tone carried no inflection, no rise and fall. “Fuck.”

“Our thoughts exactly,” Hank said.

“They know you’ve been hiding in our cabin,” Connor said, harsh authority in his voice. “And we don’t know how easy it may be for them to figure out our room number. We need to get you out of here immediately.”

“Where — where can I go?” Mel asked. “Last time I tried to leave, they saw me.”

Hank sized her up. She was damn easy to spot, standing as tall as she did, with her hair that long, and her second-hand outfit most certainly not suited to a Caribbean cruise.

“How did you stow away on the boat in the first place?” Hank asked, and Connor straightened as the thought apparently occurred to him.

“The engine room,” he said. “Mel, can you hide out there?”

Mel’s shoulders fell, and she seemed to curl in on herself. “For how long? I can’t hide from them  _ forever _ .”

Connor shook his head, then strode over to the bedside table. Hank watched, perplexed, as Connor took up the little cruise brochure that had been left there for them. Of course they hadn’t had a moment to look sideways at the damn thing, but Connor seemed to know exactly what he was looking for. He flipped it open and handed it to Mel.

“We reach Haiti tomorrow morning,” he said. “Our first port. If you can just hide in the engine room tonight, we can sneak you off the ship tomorrow. There’s more places to run when you’re on land, and if they think you’re still on the ship, you’ll get a head start.”

Mel’s eyes flicked from Hank to Connor to the brochure. Something in her expression softened. “It’s beautiful,” she said quietly. “The beach and the — the sand.”

“There are worse places to be on the run,” Hank provided. He tried to keep his tone gentle. This isn’t what he wanted for her, and glancing into Connor’s troubled eyes he knew it wasn’t what Connor wanted either. They liked a happy ending for their cases — but they didn’t always get one. 

This, at least, could be a better ending than many they’d seen. Mel might not ever be free, but she’d be safer on the run than she was cooped up in this ship, safer in Haiti than she was in the continental U.S. She could skip out of Labadee and into Haiti at large, get lost in a wider community, hop another ship and sail to South America or Africa or anywhere that the Navy couldn’t follow. There were worse fates for androids, and Hank had seen them all. 

“Okay,” Mel said after far too long, her voice resigned but weak. “Okay, I’ll hide. And then — then I’ll run.” Her lips curled ruefully as she folded the brochure and stuck it into the pocket of her jacket. When she turned to look at Hank, her eyes were swimming. “I may not be good at much, but I’m — I’m really good at hiding and running.”

Connor laid a hand on her arm, and she tried for a wan smile. It was almost too easy to read an android’s expression. Mel might have been good at hiding, but she wasn’t very good at hiding how she felt about this.

But if he was being honest, neither was Hank. Connor laid his other hand on Hank’s shoulder, connecting all three of them for a brief moment, but it was cold comfort knowing Connor was as perturbed by this as he was. 


	5. Chapter 5

The warning in Connor’s HUD was more annoying than truly worrisome. It had now been two days since he’d last fallen into stasis, and his automatic processes were beginning to clog up, his system overheating a little easier, everything going .03 percent slower than usual — which wouldn’t be noticeable to anyone but him. Ideally, he would have gone into stasis when Hank went to sleep last night. 

They’d waited until nightfall to escort Mel to the door to the engine room, bypassing main corridors and keeping an eye out for Mel’s hunters. But it had been eerily quiet, too simple an errand, and Hank and Connor went back to their cabin feeling nervous. The both of them.

If these soldiers were to come looking for Mel, they would only find Hank and Connor here in their room. Whether they’d think they got the wrong cabin or torture Hank and Connor for answers — or do anything on the spectrum in between — the lack of surety was enough to keep them on edge. Though they were alone for the first time in days, they both knew that at any moment that door could fly open, and they could be in danger, so they weren’t really  _ alone _ . It was more Hank, Connor and the impending threat of the unknown crowding into that honeymoon suite.

So they sat together on the couch, holding each other for a while, quiet and exhausted. And when Hank began to snore Connor remained vigilant.

He’d been vigilant  _ all night _ . At some point he managed to usher a very sleepy husband into bed, but otherwise he stayed relatively still on the couch, watching Hank sleep and watching the night sky slide by outside the window. Every hour on the hour, he’d check in with Mel. A simple transmission to ask if she was alright. And every hour he’d hear her voice in his head:  _ It’s loud down here _ , she might say — annoyed by the hum of the engines. Or:  _ I can’t stop thinking about Martine — do you think I can catch up to that show in Haiti? _ But never anything serious. 

Just before dawn, he crawled into bed beside Hank, always preferring to be right there when Hank woke up, but he didn’t let himself slip into stasis. 

It might have been the rigidity of his own body, or the obvious humming of his fans that disturbed his husband. Because it was only a few moments later that Hank’s breathing changed and he groaned in his sleep, rolling over and flopping out a heavy arm. His hand fell onto Connor’s face, and Connor huffed. Without thinking too hard about it (because he never had to think too hard when he was with Hank) he simply flicked out his tongue and licked a long stripe up Hank’s palm. 

The surprised grunt Hank let out made Connor giggle, in spite of everything, and Hank removed his hand immediately.

“Yr disgusting, Con,” Hank mumbled into his pillow, wiping his hand on the sheets. Connor delighted in the little burst of information that gathered on his tongue and rolled over to face Hank fully. 

“Good morning, Lieutenant,” he said softly, reaching out to brush a wild lock of hair behind Hank’s ear. Hank tilted his head just enough to crack open an eye. Blinking slowly into the deep blue of pre-dawn, Hank’s lips pulled up in a sleepy half smile.

“Christ you’re pretty,” he muttered, voice still low and gravely with sleep, but not totally slurred.

“I was thinking the same thing,” Connor said. He leaned forward, laying his lips to Hank’s temple and planting a kiss there — soft and easy and simple.

Hank, awareness creeping in on him, glanced around the room as Connor pulled away. “What time is it?”

“4:57 in the morning,” Connor supplied, and Hank groaned.

“That’s _ not  _ morning. Only sociopaths see the sunrise.” Then, with a note of betrayal in his tone. “Why’d you wake me up?”

“You slapped me,” Connor said with a laugh. “I thought some retaliation was in order.”

Eyelids fluttering shut — so soft in the morning — Hank took in and let out a deep, long breath. “Just so you know, babe, it’d be easier to kill me than to get me outta this bed right now.”

“Noted.” Connor snuggled in close to Hank, nuzzling his nose into Hank’s hair as Hank curled a little deeper into his pillow.

“So I’m guessin’ we didn’t get ambushed last night?” Hank asked in a warm mumble, catching Connor’s hand between them on the bed. Connor laid a little heavier against his own pillow.

“You wouldn’t have known even if we had,” Connor said with a laugh. “You were dead to the world, Mr. Anderson.”

Hank snorted. “Yeah well, been busy haven’t we?” He twisted the ring on Connor’s finger absently. Connor let him. “Can’t blame a guy for needing a little shut-eye.”

Connor hoped that, behind his smile, Hank couldn’t see that Connor could use a little shut-eye himself. He could go days without going into stasis if he needed to, but he had become quite accustomed to regular rest. He tried not to let on.

“Do you feel better having slept a while?” Connor asked.

“I’ll feel better when Mel’s in Haiti and we’re off the hook for her,” Hank said. They’d discussed a little last night what might happen once Mel was gone. If her old squadron-mates found them, they could deny knowing where she went, or they could talk to security and try to transfer to a new cabin. 

But there was no point making a decision until they  _ could  _ decide. One step at a time. That’s how Connor had come to do his best police work. It wasn’t a matter of a thousand processes happening at once, but his full concentration applied to one task.

For now, that task wasn’t laying here with his husband, indulging in a quiet morning with the swell of the sea outside their honeymoon suite. That task, in fact, pinged a quiet reminder. It  _ had _ been an hour since he’d last checked in.

He blinked as he sent his message to Mel:  _ Still alright? _

“Whatcha doing?” Hank asked lazily.

“Checking in with Mel,” Connor replied. 

Normally it took less than a couple seconds for her to say something. Connor tried again.  _ Mel, are you alright?  _ It must have shown on his face, because Hank’s eyes narrowed, and it looked as though the clinging remnants of sleep were fading from his expression.

“What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know.” Sitting up, Connor forced himself to let go of Hank’s hand.  _ Mel _ , he tried, more insistent.  _ What is going on? _

The answer finally came, this time immediately.

_ You do not have authorization to contact this unit _ , Mel’s voice said, but it didn’t sound like Mel.  _ Cease communication at once. _

It sounded like an automatic recording.

Connor turned back to Hank, who was hefting himself up onto his hands, looking worried. “Con?”

“Mel’s memory is wiped every three days,” Connor said carefully.

Hank blinked. “Yeah?”

Connor shook his head, throwing the covers off and standing, and he pitched his voice to a perfect copy of Mel’s. “‘But it was terrible yesterday and it’ll be terrible again day-after tomorrow,’” he quoted, casting around for something to wear. He knelt for the swim shorts he’d abandoned yesterday. They were dry now, and easy. “I think her memory’s been wiped,” he said in his own voice. “I can’t believe we didn’t  _ think  _ of that.”

Hank sat up fully, rubbing his head. “Well she’s safe, right? Still tucked into that engine room. She’ll read her notebooks, deviate again, and stay put. It takes you guys like what? Ten seconds to read all that?”

Striding to the bedside, Connor tugged Hank’s beard in gentle suggestion, turning him to face the coffee table, still covered in Mel’s scattered notebooks, her backpack hanging open, limp and empty on its side.

And he felt Hank tense under his hand. “She doesn’t have her notebooks.” Hank said. “She doesn’t remember anything.” His eyes widened on Connor, fully awake now.

“And most importantly,” Connor said, dread rising up in his chest, “She’s not deviant.” He circled the bed once more, kneeling for their duffel bag.

“Why is that most important?”

Connor shook his head. “Every android has a tracker built into it. That’s how they’ve been able to catch up with Mel every time she’s escaped them.”

“Well then why were they looking for her yesterday if they knew where she was?” Hank challenged. But Hank knew as well as anyone. Connor tossed a clean shirt at him.

“Hank, you know why our jobs are so hard?” 

Hank snorted. “Uh, because people are objectively horrible?”

“Because trackers don’t work in deviants,” Connor corrected him. 

Hank’s eyes blew open. “But they’ll work if she’s not deviant.”

“Which is why we didn’t get ambushed last night. They probably didn’t even bother hacking into the ship’s computers to figure out where our cabin was. They knew it was just a matter of a few hours before her memory got wiped. Before they could pinpoint her exact location — and she wouldn’t even know they were coming.”

“And without her notebooks —”

“She won’t deviate until it’s too late, Hank,” Connor said. He rose to his feet and met Hank’s eyes. “I’m sorry — no time for coffee this morning.”

It took less than a half a second for Hank to throw the covers off, stumbling out of bed and snatching his own swim shorts from the luggage rack where they’d set them out to dry. “Fuck coffee,” Hank snapped. “We gotta get down to that engine room.”

As Connor shrugged into a clean button-down shirt and Hank struggled into his own clothes, Connor couldn’t help the thought — how much he loved Hank like this. The hardboiled, eccentric police lieutenant he’d fallen in love with, committed to the case, committed to helping people, righting wrongs. And when Hank opened the door and motioned for Connor to follow, Connor couldn’t help but do so. He’d always follow Hank. Hank would always follow him. It’s why he knew whatever trouble Mel was in, they’d fix it — the two of them.

Somehow.

* * *

They’d run through these corridors so many times in the last few days, so even without an eidetic memory and the ship’s blueprints to go off of, Connor was confident he’d be able to find his way to the engine room blind. 

Though of course they didn’t stick to the ship’s main walkways. It was still early enough that few people — staff and crew included — were up and about, but nevertheless they had only barely escaped the accommodations wing of their deck before Connor steered them through a side door and down some clanking metal steps down, down, down into the belly of the ship. 

The thing was massive, 20 decks, and not for the first time Connor worried over Hank’s lungs and heart and knees and basically everything about him. But with a scan of Hank’s steady vitals constantly tucked into the corner of his vision, he tried to focus on the task at hand. Well,  _ tasks _ , more like. They scrolled across his HUD:  _ Find Mel, Make Mel Deviate, Hide Mel. _

Two days ago, he had no idea who this android was, and now he was about to go against the apparent orders of the United States Navy for her. But by the time they skidded to a halt outside the engine room door, there wasn’t an opportunity for second thoughts. They were in this up to their  _ ears _ . The two of them had already busted through all the “staff only” doors, and now into “authorized personnel only” territory. Hank and Connor happened to be neither staff nor authorized personnel, but Hank reached around Connor for the door handle anyway.

“Wait,” Connor said, laying a hand over Hank’s. Hank met his eyes. “We don’t know the situation, Hank. She may have had her memory wiped nearly two hours ago. She might not even be in there. Or there might be crew down there. We should …” he paused, squeezing Hank’s knuckles. “We should be quiet.” He didn’t mention the other possibility, the one that currently seemed most probable by all his estimations: That Mel’s attackers had already found her. She wasn’t shut down — he wouldn’t have gotten that automatic reply if she was — but she could be in trouble. And these people had guns.

“Alright,” Hank said, breath returning to him slowly. He inhaled deep through his nose, then gently turned the handle. It clicked open about as quietly as it could.

Though the stairs and all the walkways below were made of the sort of perforated metal that carried the sound of footfalls for seeming miles, and though Connor’s husband was a big man and Connor himself was made of heavy materials, they stepped gently down each step — watching their footing and minding their volume.

Not that it was much of a worry in here. Mel hadn’t been kidding when she had said how loud it was. From their vantage point by the entry door, the whole engine room was laid out before them, six massive engines — cylindrical apparatuses at least ten feet high and 15 feet long  _ each _ , were set up along the grid of the walkway, protected by low railing. They hummed and buzzed like a thousand angry bees, filling the metal room with their racket. Along the edges of the walls, panels and their glowing screens added an eerie flicker to the room’s dim lighting, and beneath the perforated metal walkways, another level was visible. Smooth concrete flooring where technicians no doubt performed maintenance on the lower halves of the engines.

Connor immediately scanned the area for signs of life — thankfully he couldn’t register the life signs of anyone on duty in the glass-walled security room above them. But he  _ did _ register body heat of two humans coming from down below, tucked behind one of the engines on the other side of the room. It wasn’t needed, but he held up a finger to his lips and met Hank’s eyes. Hank nodded, gesturing for Connor to get behind him and follow him down. 

Connor allowed it, but he made sure he wasn’t so far behind that it would take him more than a fraction of a second to jump in front of Hank if he needed to. 

As they tiptoed onto the main walkway, three engines on either side of them, Connor strained his auditory processors. He could make out voices from the far right corner of the room, somewhere under the hum and the rattle. But he couldn’t yet make out words. He took Hank by the elbow and led him down an adjacent walkway, tucking them into the shadow behind the nearest engine as they strode the path toward their target.

When finally Connor could just make out the voices, they were just an engine away, and Connor held Hank fast. They stopped in their tracks.

“How’s it coming? I don’t know how much longer our distraction is going to work on that guard.” That was Cooper’s voice, definitely wavering slightly. Connor couldn’t tell why without seeing his face, without knowing what was happening just out of view.

“It’s not going great,” the woman responded. To Connor’s surprise, her voice trembled too. She sounded almost … sad. Everything he had observed about this woman so far had suggested to him that she was harsh — maybe even  _ cruel  _ — the kind of person that was incapable of sadness.

The woman continued gently. “She’s been deviating on and off for a year and there’s so much built-up data to sift through, processes she’s learned. Even with this thing wiping her memory all the time. In fact, I think the secrecy protocol has created more problems than it’s solved.”

“It’s worth it, though,” Cooper replied. “Finally caught her before she remembered she was being followed. It’s a lot easier to detain a killing machine if it doesn’t know you’re coming.”

“When she realized though … she was so  _ scared _ , Cooper.”

“All the more reason to get this taken care of now. She probably deviated again, and I don’t like our odds if she wakes up before you’re done.”

Connor leaned forward almost unconsciously, but didn’t hear a reply from the woman.

“Fitz?” That was Cooper, a note of concern in his tone. Fitz then. That was her name. Zoe Fitz  _ had _ been one of the names on the squadron list. 

“I’m just hoping this works, that’s all,” Fitz said quietly, a little helplessly.

Connor turned to Hank, whose eyebrows were raised, and Connor motioned for Hank to stay put. Hank thinned his lips, but didn’t argue. It was a godsend to be able to communicate with Hank without speaking. He knew Hank wasn’t happy, but Hank trusted him. Hank always trusted him.

Connor stepped gently forward, into the shadow of the last engine in the line, and moved just far enough to be able to peek around the corner. He didn’t know what he thought he’d find, but it wasn’t this. 

In his HUD, the directive updated: _ Find Mel: Accomplished. _

Laying on the cold metal of the walkway, propped up against the railing, Mel was stripped bare and exposed down to her chassis, gleaming white in the fluorescent light above. She seemed to be unconscious, head lolled against the rail, optical units closed. Before her, the woman — Fitz — knelt on the ground, staring at a screen inside a briefcase, where wires led from its base up to Mel’s neck port and into the port on her lower back. Connor tried to zoom in on the screen, to see what Fitz was seeing, but the angle was all wrong. He couldn’t tell what they were doing from here. 

Cooper was standing a few feet away from Mel and Fitz, his back to Connor, pointing his pistol at Mel’s face — just in case she woke up, Connor assumed. His stance was sure and steady, but both of their stress levels read high. 

Carefully, Connor tiptoed back to Hank and gestured for him to move back. They sequestered themselves in a corner of the walkway between the railing and the second engine in the line, and Hank leaned in close. “What are they doing to her?” Hank breathed in Connor’s ear. His hot breath was normally a pleasant distraction. Now Connor tried to ignore it.

“I don’t know,” he whispered, “trying to access her memory, maybe?”

“So it  _ is _ information they want.”

Connor pulled back to meet Hank’s eyes. “Or information they want destroyed.”

Eyebrows going up, Hank shook his head. “Why not just shut her down then?” 

“Maybe they’re going to once they get what they want out of her.”

When Hank pulled back, he held Connor’s gaze for a few long moments, searching him. “So we’re stepping in then?” He didn’t have to ask. One look at Connor’s expression and Hank rubbed his forehead. The sound of his sigh was lost in the roar of the engine, but Connor could feel it. “Yeah. Okay, we’re stepping in then. God I wish they didn’t have fucking guns.” 

Connor opened his mouth, ready to offer a few preconstructions to help them pull this off, but Hank was already moving. “You sneak around the side, try to get to Mel. Follow my lead.” Con almost chased after him, almost snapped “you follow _ my  _ lead,” but he didn’t want to compromise whatever plan Hank had, or compromise their very precarious position. If they could just sneak Mel out of here, then they could figure out what was going on before she wound up dead — or _ they _ did.

Connor swallowed — a reflexive, anticipatory action he didn’t need, but was programmed into him anyway. He thought in that brief, flashing moment, about the wedding, Hank’s white suit, the blue drapes over the archway, Sumo in his bowtie collar. Connor had just gotten married to the man he loved. There was no way he was going to let either of them die here. He steeled himself and crouched, keeping low and in the shadows as he emerged from behind the engine. Mel was only 17 feet away. He could reach her and run out the back stairwell on the other side of the room.

It would be tight, and he didn’t know if Hank would be running with him. As it was, Hank was quietly ascending the stairs back to the door where they’d come in. If it were anyone else, Connor would be concerned he was being left behind.

_ Retrieve Mel _ , his new directive stated. That was all he was allowed to think about right now.

Up the stairs, the door opened, just enough to let in some light. As Connor stayed out of sight just behind the engine where Mel was tucked away, Hank did something so monumentally stupid, Connor’s thirium pump nearly burst out of his chest. 

“Yeah, yeah,” Hank shouted, so loud it was obviously meant to draw attention. “I’ll check out the uh, engine, sir! No problem!” The door slammed shut, and Connor’s auditory processors picked up a hurried whisper.

“Shit, Fitz, hurry up,” Cooper hissed. 

“Hey which of us has advanced training in android engineering? Do  _ you  _ want to give it a try?”

“Shh, I’m sorry, it’s just—”

Hank’s loud footsteps echoed down the stairs, and Connor grit his teeth before slipping quickly around the corner of the engine. He was in the shadows, but if either Fitz or Cooper were to turn his way, they’d see him immediately.

“Shit,” Fitz’s voice said quietly. “Let me shove her behind here. Who the fuck is it now?” She got a hand on Mel’s thigh, another on her shoulder, and pushed her out of Connor’s sight, Cooper following behind.

The sound of plastic sliding over metal set Connor’s teeth on edge, but he closed his eyes and used the sound to determine where Mel’s unconscious body had been pushed. On the far side of the engine, out of his line of sight. Out of Hank’s, too.

As Hank stepped onto the walkway and began to head toward that third engine in the line, toward Cooper and Fitz and Mel, Connor tried to ignore how angry he was at him. Hank was the one made of flesh and blood and all the irreplaceable things. And Hank was the one who had made himself known to these people. Connor was going to eviscerate him for this later, but Hank had likely taken that into account.

Connor listened to Hank’s sure footsteps on the walkway, intentionally heavy, and noted how close he was getting. He couldn’t see Fitz and Cooper from here, couldn’t tell if they had their guns raised, what their plan might be. So he crept forward, his task clear. 

But the sudden sound of rapid footsteps on the walkway made Connor plaster himself against the engine’s railing, frozen for a moment — before he realized what direction they were heading. Fitz and Cooper both stalked past the engine and onto the main walkway, and Connor burst into action. They’d see Hank by now. Hank would be in danger by now. Hank —

Connor slipped around the back of the engine where Mel was tucked against the railing, the computer still hooked up to her and running her processes. But he snuck by her as quickly as he could, peeking his head around the corner. 

The three humans were staring at each other, each seemingly lost for words until Hank, bless him, plastered an easy look of consternation on his face. He  _ was _ good at this. “Hey,” Hank said suddenly, and he advanced a few steps in their direction. “What are you two doing down here? You aren’t staff or crew!”

Their guns were both in their holsters on their hips, and Connor predicted it would take them only moments to reach and shoot. He swallowed and moved — he had to move — toward Mel’s unconscious form just a few feet away.

“We’re, uh, security contractors,” Fitz said. “Just checking for suspicious activity.” 

At that moment, Connor turned the corner and lost sight of them, but he kept his ears strained. 

“Well, I’ve been doing maintenance on this ship for years, and I’ve never met you,” Hank lied easily. Con’s lips ticked in a nervous smile as he knelt by Mel’s body, gently and quietly unhooking each wire from her neck port. Her face was slack, her stasis forced.

“Do you have some identification?” Hank continued, gruff and authoritative.

“Hey,” Cooper barked, “ _ We’re  _ security. Why don’t you show us  _ your _ ID?”

Connor discarded the loose wires on the walkway and reached around Mel, hefting her onto his shoulder effortlessly. She was tall, but not heavier than any other android, and certainly not too heavy for Connor to carry. 

Knowing he only had moments, Connor calculated the best route out of the engine room, up the opposite side they came down. He crept gently back toward the main walkway, but couldn’t stop himself from keeping Hank in his sights.

“Alright, alright,” Hank said, approaching the pair, and Connor began to back toward the stairwell, ready to spring into action should either Cooper or Fitz reach for their guns. They both had their backs turned, their hands on their hips.

“I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.” Hank reached into his pocket, exaggerating how deep it actually went, screwing his face up in concentration. Buying Connor some time. “Now where is that damn thing,” Hank muttered, and Connor hit the stairwell with the back of his ankle, began stepping up it quietly, gently.

“Get a move on,” Fitz groaned.

“Sorry, one sec, I just gotta — Oh!” His face lit up. So subtle no one but an android could see, Hank lifted his eyes to Connor — tucked in the shadow of the stairwell — and he nodded. Connor heard the order loud and clear:  _ Go. _

But that’s not what Hank said aloud. “Here it is.” With that, he pulled his fist out of his pocket, drew it back, and slammed it hard into Cooper’s nose. Cooper cried out, Fitz shouted, and Cooper doubled over clutching his face. 

The rest happened so quickly Connor had to slow it down in his HUD to process it. Hank leaned over Cooper’s body, snatched the gun from his holster just as Fitz reached back to grab her own. But by then it was too late. Hank smacked the gun out of her hand with his own weapon, sending it flying off in the direction of the other staircase. It clattered across the walkway. In the flash of a second that followed, Hank’s voice called out.

“Run!” 

And Connor obeyed, if only because he knew Hank wouldn’t be far behind him. Connor wheeled around, ascended those last few steps in two solid leaps and threw open the door, already constructing a route, already constructing a plan. But he wouldn’t leave until Hank was with him.

Hank bounded up the stairs, ignoring the shouts of Fitz and Cooper below, and careened right into Connor as he threw the door shut behind him. “Where?” Hank gasped out, and Connor hefted Mel more securely on his shoulder. He ran, knowing Hank would be right behind him.

Connor didn’t think about the gun in Hank’s hand, live and ready to go off. He didn’t think about the gun that Fitz had likely retrieved, how easy it might be to hit two moving targets in these narrow halls. 

Instead, he thought about the route. They sprinted up seven deck’s worth of stairs, the narrow stairwell echoing with Fitz and Cooper’s voices: “Stop!” and “Come back here!” They were in better shape than Hank, but Hank and Connor had a head start and Connor wasn’t about to let them lose it. He made sure Hank was never more than a few steps behind, and they finally reached the deck he’d been aiming for.

Connor threw open a door to a residential wing on deck six, and he smiled with the relief of it. They weren’t far now. They could make it.

“This way, Hank,” he said quickly, grabbing Hank’s hand with his free one. “I have an idea!”

He threw himself down the hallway, around a corner, Hank in tow, just as two figures dressed in black appeared around the corner behind them. “Stop right there!” Fitz’s voice shouted.

“Goddamnit!” Hank yelled, ducking fast around the corner with Connor, thankfully conscious of Fitz’s gun. “This is  _ not _ how I expected to spend our honeymoon!”

He couldn’t help it, Connor laughed. Because he knew in just a few moments they would be safe. 

“Hank,” he said as they wheeled around a corner, feet sliding. 

“What?” Hank barked, out of breath, and probably none to pleased by Connor’s smile. 

“This is the second time we’ve gone up against a government agency together,” Connor continued, launching himself down the hallway, Hank behind but not by much. “What do you say next year we take on the CIA?”

Hank’s responding grunt was more a choke than anything. “Is —” he gasped out, “is now really the time?” There was a tickle of amusement in his voice that Connor didn’t miss, and in the corner of Connor’s eye Hank’s stress levels decreased — just a bit, but enough.

They careened through another door, straight into the ship’s impressive fitness room where the smell of disinfectant stung Connor’s olfactory processors, and they had to weave through exercise equipment to make it to the other side. But the fitness area wasn’t just for exercise. A door on the other end of the room spelled out SPA in flowing turquoise script, and Connor kept his sights on it. 

Somewhere in the room, Connor registered the presence of some people taking advantage of the gym’s early morning lull, but he ignored them as he shouldered open the door to the spa. The room was floored with green tile, with saunas and showers set up alongside some lockers. Behind a curtain, the sound of running water suggested at least one person was nearby, but that wouldn’t matter in a moment. 

“Connor, where are we —”

“Shh,” Connor hissed, dragging Hank onward. Their sandals slapped loud on the tile as they ran. Just past the showers, the slick wooden doors of the saunas were waiting. 

“In there, quick,” Connor said, rocketing toward them. He threw open the door to the first sauna they saw, practically shoved his husband inside, and threw himself in after him.

“Con, we’re cornered here,” Hank gasped, hands falling to his knees as he struggled for breath. But Connor just deposited Mel’s unconscious form on the bench and placed his hand against the door lock.

“These saunas are timed,” Connor said as the skin peeled back from his hand. He slipped his intention into the codes that controlled the lock screen. “Thirty minutes, maximum. Ten minimum. I’m setting it to look like we’ve been in here at _ least _ five minutes.” 

Even as he said it, he made sure to keep his voice low. These saunas weren’t entirely soundproof, and their assailants knew which direction they’d run. 

But as Connor backed away from the door, staring at it as if with enough willpower he could develop X-ray vision, he picked up the sound of footsteps, rapid and enraged. “They ran through here,” Fitz shouted, her voice a bare mumble on this side of the door. “Fuck, Cooper keep up!”

And then the footsteps ran past.

With a deep breath to cool his systems, Connor forced the faux ligaments in his shoulders to relax. He hadn’t realized how tense the run had made him, but it was always like this when a case reached this point — whether chasing a criminal or running  _ from _ one. 

Confident now that they had a moment, he turned to Hank, who was sitting beside Mel’s unconscious form, his head leaned against the wall.

“Jesus,” he gasped. Heat began to rise from the fake lava rocks in the corner, and Hank raised a big, meaty hand to try to fan himself off. “You’re a fucking genius, Con, hiding out in here. I don’t think I could’a run much longer.”

Connor flopped down beside Hank, resting a hand on his knee. “I know,” Connor said. Then, leaning up, he licked a drop of sweat from Hank’s temple.

“Hey!” Hank said, squirming away. “Ugh, Con —”

“Your blood sugar is low,” Connor said, licking his lips. “We need to get you something to eat.” He couldn’t help worrying about Hank. It was his primary function anymore. But after the display just now — literally decking a Navy officer in the face — he did have to remind himself that Hank knew how to take care of himself. He just didn’t do it nearly well enough for Connor’s liking.

“In a minute. We gotta make sure they’re gone.”

Just past Hank’s shoulder, Connor’s eyes fell on Mel, eerily still. He’d have to wake her up soon, try to transfer all his memories of the last few days. But he needed to rest a moment, too. His processors were strained. Stasis was beginning to sound  _ very _ appealing right about now.

“We can’t stay in here too long,” Connor said quietly. “Mel and I will overheat once the sauna gets going.” 

Hank sighed, reaching around Connor’s head and tucking him against Hank’s shoulder. “Just for a sec then. They know what we look like now, so I don’t wanna risk shit.”

“They know what  _ you _ look like,” Connor corrected him. “They barely caught a glimpse of me.” 

“So I have to hide out in the sauna for the rest of the cruise, then,” Hank said with a half-hearted imitation of a laugh. “Guess you get to enjoy the pool without me.”

“Very funny,” Connor deadpanned. He nestled his nose against Hank’s shoulder, breathing in the smell of his sweat, and chlorine from yesterday’s swim. “I’m just saying we have one small advantage over them, at least.”

Hank’s fingers came to Connor’s chin and tilted it up, and Connor almost melted at the warm smile on his face. Then Hank leaned down to plant a light kiss on his lips. He tasted like salt and sweat and Connor had to resist the urge to lick into his mouth.

When they pulled apart, Connor kept a hand on Hank’s cheek to hold him close. “You were amazing back there,” he whispered. Gently, he laid a kiss on the side of Hank’s mouth, then his chin. Hank’s little self-satisfied smile didn’t go unnoticed.

“Yeah?”

Connor hummed, his other hand traveling up Hank’s thick thigh, tugging at the fabric of his swim trunks. “You thought on your feet,” Connor said, “so fast I couldn’t even preconstruct it. You’re always surprising me, Hank.” 

But when he gripped the squishy seam of Hank’s thigh and pelvis, Hank’s hand landed on his own, guiding it back down. “You know this isn’t gonna help with your overheating problem.”

Connor laughed and ducked his head, relenting. “Like I’d try anything untoward with Mel here.” He nodded over Hank’s shoulder, where Mel still lay, and Hank sighed, scratching his head. 

“Highly specialized military model, designed for espionage and cock-blocking, apparently.” 

Connor smiled and took Hank’s hand in both of his own. Lifting it to his lips, he kissed his husband’s knuckles — red where they had connected with Cooper’s face. “We’re close to getting past this, Lieutenant,” he said softly.

Hank waved his free hand at his armpit as if to try to cool it off, letting out a frustrated breath. “So what now? Can’t go back to the cabin, can we? They know our names — they could look us up.”

“Now we wake Mel up. Make sure she’s deviated, like they said. Then we try to remind her of what’s going on and get her off this ship. She can escape in Haiti and we can keep Fitz and Cooper distracted until she’s gone.”

“Distracted,” Hank said, a hint of concern in his voice. “You do realize they have guns, right?”

“Now so do we,” Connor pointed out, nodding to the gun Hank had left on the bench beside him. “But they didn’t shoot at us while we were running. We’re not their target, are we? And I doubt they want any civilian casualties.”

With an unconvinced hum, Hank glanced over to Mel at his other side. “Guess we’d better get on it, then.”

Though Connor wished they could postpone this part for later, warnings were already appearing in his HUD about the heat. It wouldn’t be good for him or Mel to stay in here much longer. Resigned, he stood and moved over to Mel. With a considering look, he leaned over and took her by the shoulders, laying her up against the wall and leaning her head back. 

Skin receding from his hand, he took up Mel’s wrist. He’d wake her and perform the interface all at once, to reduce the amount of time she had to freak out. “Move the gun, Hank,” Connor instructed. “I don’t want her to try to grab it.”

Hank didn’t have to be told twice. Not only did he grab the gun, but he stood and tucked it in his waistband, walking a few steps away. 

Once he was certain Hank was out of easy reach, Connor closed his eyes and sent a signal through Mel’s system. It wasn’t unlike that fateful night at Cyberlife tower, a flicker of electricity and intent passing from the plastic of his skin and into hers, carrying a single message with it:  _ Wake up. _

Her eyes blew open, her synthetic lips parting. “Wh—where am I?” she shouted. A hard yank nearly made Connor stumble, but he kept hold of her wrist as she tried to struggle out of his grip. 

“Mel —”

“Who are y—” but before she could finish, Connor sent his consciousness through their connection, his thoughts speeding along the wires that made up Mel’s mind, and he tried to communicate everything through that touch — every memory, every moment they’d known Mel — in picture-perfect detail. He kept a safe distance from her core memory, affecting only the surface of her consciousness. All this would go away again, next time she was reset, but what mattered was that she knew him now.

As quickly as it started, it was over, and Connor released Mel’s wrist with a spark of static. Mel jolted upright, gasping, as Connor stepped away to give her space. Skin began to dapple back over her face, creating a mottled look over the pained expression she wore, and Connor reached out gently to soothe her.

“Mel, it’s okay, it’s —”

“Those fuckers took my clothes!” She shouted, laying her hands over her chassis.

Hank rushed over. “Hey hey, keep your voice down, sweetheart,” he said in a fatherly sort of tone. “We don’t want to draw attention.”

Mel pouted, but without eyebrows or wrinkles or anything else to aid the expression, she just looked like a grumpy kind of egg with a very large Roman nose. “Well I’d like to draw attention to the fact that I’m  _ naked _ . How the hell are we supposed to get back to your cabin?”

Privately, Connor breathed a sigh of relief. Mel had indeed returned to her old self. Unharmed — for the most part.

“We can’t —”

Just then, speakers crackled from somewhere above them, a smooth female voice slipping through. “Attention passengers of the Allure of the Seas,” she said. “We are now approaching our first port: Labadee, Haiti. Those interested in going ashore, please make your way to the main deck to deboard the ship.” 

The speaker crackled once again, and silence fell among them.

“What does that mean?,” Mel asked, sitting up a bit straighter. “What’s happening?”

Connor and Hank shared a look, and Hank scratched his head. “It means we might be able to get you off this boat and stashed somewhere safe while we figure something out. But we’re gonna have to be fast, and we’re gonna have to be careful.” He met Connor’s eyes once more. “And,” he added reluctantly. “Here soon we’re gonna have to split up.”

Connor knew already that their plan would necessitate parting ways, but he didn’t much care for the idea. Brows knit, he began to unbutton his shirt. “Mel,” he said quietly, “you go ahead and wear my clothes for now. I’ll grab a towel.” He handed the shirt to Mel, then bent to remove his swim shorts. 

Hank audibly swallowed as Connor disrobed. Mel appeared to have no reaction at all, shrugging into the shirt and letting her skin inch back over her chassis, little by little. Hair sprouted once again from her head, tumbling in a loose cascade down her shoulders and back.

“We’re going to run back to our cabin,” Connor continued. “Get some clothes, and then you and I are going to get off this ship.”

“And Hank?” Mel asked, holding out her hand for the shorts. Connor handed them over, then looked to his husband. 

Hank gave Mel a coy smile. “Don’t you worry about me,” he said. “I’m just going to take care of a few things on board.”

“Like what?” Mel asked, a note of nerves in her voice.

“Play some shuffleboard, hit the ice rink, you know. Cruise shit.”

The joke clearly didn’t land with Mel, though Connor liked the idea of his husband enjoying the ship rather than putting himself in imminent danger. He was willing to pretend, for the moment, but Mel clearly was not.

“So you’re going to try to find Fitz and Cooper is what you’re saying.” Mel said in a deadpan.

Hank seemed to try for a reassuring look. “Might run into ‘em.”

Connor, conscious of the gun in Hank’s waistband and Hank’s less than stellar sense of self-preservation, took a deep, steadying breath. Because, in all this, he was also conscious of the fact that if Hank knew what needed to be done, he’d do it. Just like Connor would.

And no matter what, this would be over soon.


	6. Chapter 6

They couldn’t stick around their room for long. Hank knew that — with the whole ship distracted getting folks onshore, their assailants would have a perfect opportunity to figure out what room was Hank and Connor’s, provided they had the means to do so.

Thankfully, it meant they had the same opportunity. To blend into the crowds, to take advantage of the relative chaos, to get Mel gone. Hank didn’t like going into a potentially dangerous situation without all the details, let alone executing a full-blown operation. Folks tended to think of him as a loose cannon cop, but they didn’t know what happened in Hank’s head before every successful raid, every arrest, every investigation, every crime-in-progress he stopped. He liked to plan out every beat. 

So he paced as Connor dealt with their immediate needs. He paced as Connor fished through his bag for a fresh change of clothes for himself and Mel. He paced as Mel sat nervously on the edge of the bed, holding up every piece of clothing Connor passed her and screwing up her face in distaste. 

Connor was already dressed again — a button-down T-shirt that Hank had bought him, patterned with pink paw prints, plus some sinfully short khaki shorts. Mel had donned one of Connor’s white undershirts, a tanktop that left little to the imagination, but as she sat in that and a pair of Connor’s boxer-briefs it seemed they couldn’t agree on the rest of the outfit.

“I want to blend in,” Mel was saying. “I can’t wear pants in the  _ tropics _ .”

Connor tossed the slacks he’d offered her onto the bed. “I didn’t bring very many options,” he muttered. “Let me see what Hank has.” He knelt to dig into Hank’s duffel, and Hank — who had only been paying half-attention, turned to Mel.

“What I don’t understand,” Hank said suddenly, continuing a conversation he’d been having in his head, “is why you didn’t fight them off this time. I know you didn’t know they were after you at first, but once you realized what they were doing —”   
  
Mel stared at him for a second, apparently trying to get her brain to switch tack.

“You probably could’ve killed them,” Hank prodded a little less than tactfully. Mel’s brows drew together. 

“Probably,” she agreed. “But I probably could have killed them loads of times over the last year.” 

Connor tossed a T-shirt onto the bed and Mel’s eyes lit up. “Cute!” She grabbed it and held it up to her shoulders, an old, striped button-down of Hank’s that would hang off of Mel, but might look endearing all the same.

Unwilling to let Mel get too distracted by the outfit, Hank knelt by the bed, getting closer to her level as she shrugged the shirt over her shoulders. “So why haven’t you killed them, then?” He asked. 

Mel tugged her hair out of the shirt’s collar and tossed it back over her shoulders, twisting it up by the nape of her neck as she rolled her eyes. “You know how useless it is asking me questions by now, right? I don’t know. Trust me I’m as tired saying it as you are hearing it.”

“Just think about it,” Hank asked. He was trying to do it gently, treating her like he would an unwilling witness. 

Mel scrunched up her mouth as she settled the knot of her hair between her shoulder blades, and she looked harried. Tired. “These people,” she said quietly, “Cooper and — and Fitz. I don’t remember them, but when I think of them something feels…” She paused, fingers clenching subtly in her lap. “I think If I had the chance to hurt them — I mean  _ really _ hurt them — I wouldn't want to.”

Connor poked his head over the bottom of the bed, and thrust his hand at Mel, holding out a pair of khaki shorts identical to the ones he was wearing. “Found these,” he said, and Mel’s face lit up as she grabbed them. 

“That’s what I’m talking about. Almost stole the shorts right off your ass.” She flopped back onto the bed and wiggled into the shorts, legs in the air. Hank rubbed his forehead where a headache was most definitely beginning to form.

“I  _ do _ get what you’re saying Mel,” Connor said, then turned to Hank. There was something a little sad in Connor’s eyes. “It’s like a gut feeling, Hank,” he explained, “but in our subroutines. Something subconscious, you know? When I was shut down on that highway—”

“When you  _ died _ ,” Hank corrected. He didn’t like when Connor referred to it as anything else. He had died. It wasn’t some sort of fucking reboot. Okay, literally it was a reboot, but Connor was alive, and he had  _ died _ . There wasn’t any sugar-coating that now, and there certainly hadn’t been any at the time.

“When I died,” Connor conceded, “and came back, I felt the same about you. I didn’t know you very well, barely had any memories to go off of, but I knew you were important to me. Even then.”

Hank settled back on his heels, holding his husband’s eyes. “Con,” he said softly. “You never told me that.”

“You don’t like it when I mention the whole dying incident,” Connor said with a little smile. Hank laughed a quick, short thing.

“Damn right I don’t. But it’s kinda nice knowing I’d already gotten all up in your subroutines back then.” 

Connor snorted, turning back to the bag. He knelt to zip it up — always so tidy, even in a hurry as they were. “You have a remarkable ability to get into my subroutines, Hank.”

“I uh, don’t think I had  _ that _ kind of relationship with Fitz and Cooper,” Mel put in, and Hank turned back to her. A subtle blush had risen on her cheeks.

“Well, the idea is the same. You care about them somewhere in there,” Connor said. He rose once more and this time padded over to Hank, holding down his hand in offering. Hank took it gratefully, pulling himself to his feet. His legs were killing him from all this running around.

Mel sighed, tugging a strand of hair that had fallen over her ear. She had sat up now, her legs crossed at the ankle, swinging slightly back and forth. “I don’t like talking about this. Can we go over the plan instead? I’m seriously not sure I get what we’re doing.”

“The plan? You get off the boat,” Hank said without missing a beat. It was the  _ first  _ part of the plan, at least. “You  _ and  _ Connor. Take the gun, too.” Connor whipped around to him, his LED spinning red for a moment, and Hank held up his hands in defense. “Mel’s the target here, Connor. If those fuckers slip off this ship before I find them, you’ll be the ones in danger.”

“And if you find them before they find us?” Connor challenged. Hank liked it when Connor challenged him. His plans always turned out better after he’d considered every one of Connor’s many objections.

“Think they’d kill an unarmed old man on his honeymoon?” Hank shrugged with a smile.   
  


“Hank.”

Hank knew that tone all too well. It meant he was in trouble. He gave Connor a smile and took his hand gently, stroking Connor’s knuckles.

“Babe, those fuckers know what I look like, right? So I’ll track ‘em down, distract them while you two get on land, and see if I can’t get any answers from them. We still don’t know why they’re chasing our forgetful friend here —” he nodded at Mel. “So, I’d rather not go punching anyone again until we find out the story here.”

Connor gripped Hank’s hand, pulling him around to face him fully. His LED was cycling between red and yellow. “What if they hurt you? We won’t know you’re in trouble.”

“I have an idea for that, too. Don’t worry.”

Of course, no matter what Hank said, Connor would always worry about him. Hank was fragile,  _ human _ . If he died, he wasn’t about to come back like Connor could. So Connor leaned up and kissed him, warm and deep and soft, and Hank closed his eyes to lean into it. Off to the side, Mel shifted on the bed, turned away, and for a second Hank believed they were alone on their honeymoon, like they were meant to be.

It was just a second, though. Reality came back to him the moment Connor drew away, his hands still clutching Hank’s like he never wanted to let him go.

“I’m the best detective in Detroit,” Hank reminded Connor of his own refrain, “and probably the world.” Connor snorted, a hand coming up to cover his mouth. “Don’t you worry about me for a second.”

* * *

The crowd jostling toward the boarding ramp surged and frothed like the ocean beating against the sides of the ship. In the bright, tropical sunlight, sunglasses glinted like tiny flashing stars every time Hank looked over the queue. The brims of wide sunhats fluttered in a soft, hot breeze, and people were talking and laughing and toting their beach bags without a care in the damn world.

That would have been he and Connor on a better day. Hank had reserved a parasailing trip for them while they were at port here, but it looked like that wasn’t going to happen. He could mourn the money later, but now he just mourned the experience. A bird’s eye view of an island paradise — so much Connor had never seen. 

_ We have a lifetime to see the world together _ , Connor had said. Hank fingered his wedding ring, and moved on.

Blending into the crowd, the three of them found their place in line, and Hank appraised his companions. Connor looked very much himself, if nervous — forcing his LED blue for appearance’s sake, Hank noted. Mel, however, was only recognizable now by her height and her skin tone. She’d changed the color of her hair to a deep auburn, and wore Hank’s aviator sunglasses and Connor’s large sunhat to keep the rest of her face concealed. She was even wearing her hair down, and Hank could tell by the way she kept rearranging it over her shoulder that she hated it.

Though, for all she seemed to hate the hair, she and Connor  _ both _ looked even less enthused about the fact that they had to hold hands. They were about as obvious as Fitz and Cooper when it came to faking being a couple.

“Mel,” Hank said softly, “you got my fingerprints copied, right? You’ll have to scan your hands when you get to the ramp.”

“Got it,” she said.

Hank nodded. “And Con, you say Fitz and Cooper haven’t left yet?” 

“Not yet,” Connor said, glancing around the crowd. “According to the terminal I hacked, the aliases they were using at breakfast are listed as still being on board.”

“Nice. Then this is probably where I should leave you. You two gotta look like you’re in love, got it?”

Con and Mel both gave Hank a withering look, and Hank held up his hands. “At least try,” he said in an attempt at compromise, and Connor sighed. 

“We’ll try,” he said. 

“Good, now…” Hank glanced around, gratefully noting that all the security guards and staff were rather focused on the funnel of people heading toward the ramp, and not on some old man in a pineapple shirt. He fished into one of his heavy pockets and retrieved a small walkie-talkie. “Take this, and make sure no one sees it, alright?”

He held it out to Connor, who slipped it immediately into his own pocket, staring at Hank all the while with an expression that bordered on wonder.

“How did you —”

“Nicked a couple off the crew as we were passing ‘em in the hall earlier,” Hank said dismissively, patting his own pocket were a second walkie-talkie was stashed. At Connor’s sustained expression, Hank let out a low chuckle. “It isn’t that impressive, babe.” 

“He thinks everything you do is impressive,” Mel put in, and Hank tried to ignore the sudden flush that hit Connor’s cheeks at that. 

“She’s not wrong,” Connor conceded, and Hank wished he could pull Connor into one last kiss before they parted ways. Instead, all he could do was smile, move on, and hope this resolved itself sooner rather than later. 

“Anyway,” Hank forced himself to say. “It’s not quite a police radio, but we make do, right? I’ve got these on the same frequency so just call me if anything happens.”   
  


“You do the same,” Connor said immediately. “I mean it, Hank.” The line shifted forward noticeably, and Hank knew it was time to leave Connor and Mel to their own tasks. He had work to do. They all did. Risking it in the throngs of people, Hank brushed his hand against Connor’s. The skin of Connor’s knuckles receded just a little, the way it always did when he wanted to be close. 

“Love you,” Hank whispered. 

“I love you too.” And Hank figured then — because he could be a fuck of a pessimist, even on his best days — that if the worst should happen, he’d be glad that was the last thing they said to each other. He gave Connor a smile and ducked out of the line, turning away so he didn’t lose his nerve. It was stupid to wish things were different — he’d learned that a decade ago. So he’d just do what he could to  _ make _ them different. Somehow they’d get this figured out. 

As he walked away, he heard Mel’s voice: “You should be doing this with your husband,” she said, a note of apology in her tone. 

Hank couldn’t help slowing down just a little as Connor replied. “My husband is tracking down shady military operatives, searching for the hidden truth like a detective out of a crime novel. Trust me, this is just as sexy as a romp in the water.”

Smiling, Hank removed himself from the crowd as subtly as possible, and went to fulfill his own part of their plan.

  
  


* * *

Hank had been undercover enough to know how to spin a lie quickly and easily. As he moved past the worst of the crowd toward the stragglers — families with small kids and couples who looked a bit hungover from the festivities of the night before — he’d occasionally stop a group, fixing a look of exasperated concern on his face.

“I’m looking for some friends of mine,” he’d say, and he’d describe Fitz and Cooper, he’d talk about how they’d all planned to go ashore together. Most of these people hadn’t seen them, or couldn’t remember, but thank the good lord for androids and their eidetic memories.

“Oh,” said a sweet-faced AJ700, holding the hand of her human partner, who looked like she had just rolled out of bed. “Yes, I saw the woman just a few moments ago while we were leaving the buffet. She’s on the deck right above us, looking over the railing. She must be looking for you, too.” She pointed up, and Hank followed the line of her finger. He couldn’t see Fitz from this angle, but he trusted an android’s memory.

“Hey thanks so much,” he said as sweet as he could. “You two have a nice time now.” 

The android smiled at him, and her partner yawned. “You too,” she said, and the two walked off.

At least with a direction now, Hank found the nearest set of steps and ascended to the next deck, setting off in the direction the android had pointed out. It was practically deserted up here, just a few stragglers walking down from the breakfast buffet or stepping off the escalator leading up from the atrium. And, as Hank approached the deck right above where the crowds were leaving down the boarding ramp, he finally saw her.

Fitz was in her incognito getup, it seemed, rather than the black tactical gear she and Cooper had been wearing when they’d accosted Mel. It was a floral sundress that flirted with her knees in the breeze, big glasses and a sunhat perched comically over the massive friz of her hair. He imagined her getting dressed to go scouting around for him and Mel, frustrated she had to mess up her hair just for the sake of going undercover. 

It was obvious then why Mel had been the one assigned to espionage in this particular squadron. Hank approached as casually as could be, noting that Fitz’s eyes were focused down below. He didn’t want her catching a glimpse of Mel — the poor girl wasn’t hard to spot.

But Hank planned everything, and he damn sure wasn’t an idiot. In his pocket, he clicked the button on the side of the walkie talkie, locking it. If Con and Mel were paying attention, they’d hear everything.

Fitz didn’t see him approach, focused as she was, and Hank took the opportunity to sidle up next to her like it was the most natural thing in the world. “Find what you’re looking for, Fitz?” He asked casually, and she nearly jumped out of her dress. 

“Fuck!” she shouted, hopping a foot away and gripping the railing for dear life. “Goddamn, you scared the fucking shit out of me, Jesus Christ!”

Her hand flew to her hip, and Hank didn’t fail to notice that it rested on the outline of a gun under her dress. “Hey hey,” Hank said, holding up his empty hands. “You planning to shoot me out in the open like this? I’m not armed, ma’am.” 

The word ma’am looked to throw Fitz for a loop. She narrowed her eyes at him, but didn’t remove her hand from the gun. They stood in silent contemplation of each other for a moment, the sound of the breeze and the people below a stark reminder that she couldn’t kill Hank here even if she wanted to. 

“I know who you are, Lieutenant Anderson,” she said cautiously. “And I know you’re here with your husband, Connor Anderson. Detroit Police Department.” She must have gotten all of that information from Chris. He was always a thorough communicator. Hank shrugged, deciding it wasn’t worth it to deny it. Fitz continued, voice hard. “If either of you value your jobs, you need to leave this alone. We’re not some free agents, alright? We’re acting on orders from the U.S. Navy to extract information from, and subsequently shut down, the rogue Myrmidon known as Melody. You are in  _ way _ over your head, old man.”

Aside from that last sentence, the rest sounded practically rehearsed.

Hank laughed a little, lowering his hands. “So that  _ is _ her name. She thought it might be Melody. What did she do to get on your bad side?”

Something in Fitz’s expression hardened and she slipped her hand into the pocket of her dress, clearly grasping her gun. Hank could just make out the line of its barrel — pointed in his direction. “You don’t have clearance to access that information and, frankly, you’ve gotten in our way so many times I could arrest you for treason right now,” she snapped. 

“If we weren’t in international waters,” Hank pointed out. Fitz’s face contorted in frustration.

She raised her arm, where a black band blinked a steady light — a smart watch, much more efficient for communication than what Hank had nabbed from the crew — and she practically spat her next words. “Cooper. Meet me in the galley off the buffet. Get the staff out of there.” 

Damn, but a watch like that would be useful right now. At least, Hank could be confident that the device in his pocket was still transmitting this to Connor and Mel — he just hoped it could pick everything up through the fabric.

Fitz jerked the gun toward the buffet’s open deckside door, and Hank complied with the unspoken order. It wasn’t the first time a gun had been trained on him, and it wouldn’t be the last. He walked casually, as unassuming as possible as Fitz drew up behind him. 

The restaurant was mostly empty when they made their way inside, but for a few last-minute diners, but Hank didn’t fail to notice the doors to the kitchen opening as they walked in, people in white chef’s coats and blazers stamped with the cruise insignia shuffling nervously out into the room. He walked past all of them with Fitz right behind him, trying not to draw too much attention. 

He and Connor had been engaging in illegal investigations. He’d punched a member of the U.S. Navy. Fitz wasn’t kidding that their jobs were at stake here — at the very least the kitchen staff now knew the government was involved in something on this ship, and at the very most they knew Hank was a part of it. Maybe it wasn’t his life he should’ve been worrying over, but the last vestiges of his career.

As they headed into the kitchen, all stainless steel and dripping faucets and covered trays of eggs and bacon dotting the counters, Hank was struck by an eerie sort of feeling. It looked like everyone in here had just been raptured — leaving everything at the drop of a hat. He hoped Cooper hadn’t threatened them. 

But when he caught a glimpse of Cooper, standing by the dish pit, he noticed the man clipping an ID badge back onto his bulletproof vest. Unlike his partner, he was very much still dressed for battle. He was also sporting a hell of a shiner, a black eye swollen and bulbous, and a red streak of dried blood on his nose. God, Hank had socked him  _ good _ . 

At the sight of them, Cooper retrieved a gun from his belt and lifted it immediately at Hank. “This guy again!? Fuck, Fitz, what —”

“I’m fixing it,” Fitz said. “We get the lieutenant here out of our way and we can find Melody …  _ again _ .” She rubbed her head with her free hand, finally removing the gun from her dress with the other.

“I’m just trying to stop an innocent android getting killed,” Hank said. “Mel’s a good kid.”

“Listen,” Cooper said quietly, his weapon lowering just slightly. “We don’t want to do this any more than you do. Hell, Fitz and Melody —”

“Cooper!” Fitz shouted, more scared than angry. “God, please just never talk again.” Now  _ that _ got Hank’s attention. Fitz and Mel ... what?

But a thought struck Hank. A memory. As clear as if Connor were projecting it to him on his palm and holding the screen between them. He grabbed hold of that memory and ran his mouth with it, buying time for Connor and Mel to at least get off the boat. “Wait,” he said, drawing their attention. “In the engine room, when we found you, if you really planned to shut her down you would’ve done it then, right? But you hooked her up to a computer instead. What were you doing?”

Cooper cast a nervous glance to Fitz, his lips buttoned tight. She held Cooper’s eyes for a second, then turned with a frustrated groan to Hank, tossing her hands carelessly — the gun still in one of them. “So, listen, there are ways we can — we can do what we need to do without shutting her down, and we keep fucking  _ trying _ , I can promise you that. But we’ve been tracking her for a year now …”

“And she hasn’t given us much choice,” Cooper added sadly. 

Fitz glanced down to her feet, then lifted her eyes to Hank. “Cooper’s right. We don’t want to hurt her. Back then, when we were… when we were a  _ team _ , I even thought she might —” she paused, shook her head, and with what looked to be monumental effort she lifted her gun once more to point at Hank’s head. “But it doesn’t matter anymore. She’ll kill us and compromise the United States military operations in the Arctic if we don’t shut her down. This has to end somehow.”

Cooper nodded. “And we’d really like it to end today.”

The information settled somewhere in Hank’s mind, his eyes narrowing as he took it all in. They didn’t want to kill her. Was it possible that there was a peaceful solution to all this? 

Except just as the hope reared its ugly head inside him, Fitz jerked her gun toward the metal door off the side of the kitchen. “Now get in there; we don’t have all day.”

Cooper glanced to it, then back to Hank, and Hank admittedly felt a little spark of nerves. “What, the freezer?” Hank asked. “You can’t stuff an old guy like me in the freezer.”

“Well we don’t have time to track down cruise security to arrest you for conducting a police investigation outside your jurisdiction. And anyway I’d rather not do that. You’re lucky we want to keep as low a profile as possible. The freezer is temporary. An arrest will fuck you forever.”

“You aren’t going to let us do our jobs unless we get you out of the way,” Cooper explained. “When the cooks come back they’ll let you out. Probably.”

Hank scoffed. “Probably? Not really liking those odds, pal.”

Fitz jerked her gun again, resolute and unmoving. “I’ll do anything to accomplish my mission,” she said.

The phrase — such a simple thing — struck a chord of nostalgia in Hank’s heart, and he found it in himself to smile, even as he walked slowly toward the freezer, his hands up. “Connor used to say that all the time,” he said quietly. “Drove me fucking nuts. And, you know, his mission was a lot like yours. Hunting down people who just wanted to be free.”

“Shut up,” Cooper said. He circled the nearest table to keep his gun trained on Hank, too. “Open the door.” 

Hank reached for the handle, taking his sweet time, but wary of frustrating the people with guns  _ too _ much. “I”m just saying, you ever think your mission might be wrong? Androids just want to live their lives. Get a job. Get married. Go on honeymoon cruises, you know?”

“We know,” Fitz said, almost despairing. “We aren’t doing this on a whim, Lieutenant. Now open the damn door.”

“And are either of you thinking about poor Mel?” Hank continued, cracking open the door to a blast of cold air. “She’s been running scared since the second she woke up.”

”Not anymore.”

The voice, hard and determined, came from the kitchen door, and all three of them whipped around to face it. Hank’s eyes fell on Mel and Connor standing there, side by side, Connor holding up Cooper’s stolen gun and aiming it directly at the man’s face. They were only ten or so feet away, and stepping slowly forward. 

Fitz and Cooper turned their weapons from Hank to Connor in an instant. 

“Lower your weapons,” Connor demanded, and Fitz scoffed.

“Like hell we will! You lower yours or Cooper is going to shoot your husband.”

Cooper blinked rapidly, mouth going slack and Fitz groaned. “ _ Cooper _ .” He startled and turned his gun back to Hank.

“Y— yeah,” he said, like a lap dog trying to look intimidating to a stranger. “I’ll do it. I’ll shoot.” He cocked his gun, but Connor and Mel continued to advance.

“No one is shooting anyone today,” Connor said calmly.

“Then drop your fucking gun.” Fitz cocked her own pistol.

But even with the threat, Mel and Connor didn’t cease their advance. They were determined, and Hank felt a twinge of fear. He didn’t know how trigger happy these two might be, but they’d refrained from shooting at them so far. Maybe they could make it out of this unscathed. Still, he never was too pleased about people holding a gun to Connor’s head, even if he’d done it himself back in his shitty days.

“Hank and Connor haven’t done anything wrong,” Mel said gently.

“This one  _ did _ punch me,” Cooper pointed out, nodding at Hank.

“But it’s me you want, right? Shut me down then, and let these two go. I’m tired of running from you. I’m tired of being scared.” She was close enough now that a shot from that gun in Fitz’s hand — two, three feet away — would damage her beyond repair. In an instant.

“All this time fighting us, running from us, and now you’re just going to turn yourself in?” Fitz asked, outrage dripping from her voice. Her arms fell just slightly, just enough. “ _ Melody _ —” 

At that moment, Mel lept into action, swinging her leg in a wide arch and kicking the gun from Fitz’s hand. Fitz cursed, grabbing her wrist in sudden pain and stumbling back, just as Mel launched at her and tackled her brutally to the ground.

In the split second that Cooper turned his gun on Mel, Hank made a decision. He grabbed Cooper by the shoulders and threw himself onto Cooper’s back, locking his neck in a headlock. Undaunted by Hank’s considerable weight, Cooper bucked like a bronco beneath him, the hand holding the gun raising up — but Cooper doubled over with a sudden gasp and Hank lifted his eyes to Connor, fist raised. Connor lifted his knee into Cooper’s already busted nose, and Cooper let out a strangled sort of yell. 

In his throes of pain, he tossed Hank off his back and onto the hard linoleum flooring. Hank winced, sure for a second that he was a sitting duck in the face of Cooper’s weapon, but a sharp cry jolted Hank’s eyes open, and Connor and Cooper were struggling, Connor wrestling the gun out of Cooper’s grasp and tossing it to the ground. It skidded to a halt right against Fitz’s gun — past the women dodging each other’s blows on the floor. 

Cooper, undeterred, launched himself at Connor as Hank surged to his feet. “Wasn’t sure you’d come back for me!” Hank shouted as Connor threw Cooper to the side — right into Hank’s waiting arms. Hank lifted Cooper up and shoved him back to Connor, who socked him along the side of the face. Cooper ducked, swinging a fist at Connor’s side, but Connor dodged it easily.

“You owe me a romantic honeymoon!” Connor replied, grabbing Cooper by the back of his shirt and hauling him around, knocking him off balance.

“I’ll owe you more than that if you keep this guy right where you’ve got him.” Hank almost laughed with relief as Connor lifted Cooper sky high — the man’s feet barely tickling the ground.

“No proble—” Connor started, but Cooper, maybe sensing the distraction, raised his leg and kicked Connor in the stomach, sending him falling backwards. Cooper hit the ground too, though, and it took him a second to stumble to his feet. 

Hank had just enough time to get into a fighting stance by the time Cooper wheeled around on him, stalking toward him with his fists clenched — but Hank’s eyes were drawn by rapid movement in his periphery, where Mel and Fitz were struggling on the floor. Mel was straddling Fitz’s hips, trying to catch her flailing arms to pin her wrists, but Fitz apparently had a goal in mind. 

They’d moved toward where the guns lay discarded under one of the service tables, and Hank saw it happening in slow motion: Fitz reached out and grabbed one of the guns, Mel’s hand, fast as a snake-strike, following moments later. 

“Shit!” Hank shouted, shoving Cooper aside to get to them. “Stop — don’t either of you fucking shoot!”

Everything ground to a halt, the world freezing right in that moment: Mel looming over Fitz with the barrel of Fitz’s gun against her forehead; Fitz beneath her, staring down the barrel of Mel’s pistol too. Connor lifted himself to his feet, Cooper cradled a hand over his newly bloodied nose. And Hank — Hank’s heart pounded. 

“No one shoot,” he said, calmer now. 

Mel didn’t take her eyes of Fitz when she spoke. “Cooper, stop fighting them. Let them go. They’re good men and they don’t deserve to get hurt.” Her chassis was showing through her cheek, where Fitz had landed a solid blow, and Fitz was breathing hard, almost wheezing.

“You —” Fitz started, then she swallowed hard. “Melody, you don’t deserve this either.” Despair weighed down every one of her words, and Mel drew back slightly.

Hank, taking advantage of Cooper’s distraction, rushed to Connor’s side, and Connor wrapped Hank up in an embrace the second they made contact. He touched something tender on Hank’s back — likely where Hank had hit the ground — but Hank hardly cared. He nearly shuffled Connor out of the room right then, left the other three to sort out this mess.

But a clatter drew his attention before he could act on any impulse, and he turned to see Fitz, her arm limp on the ground, the gun thrown a few feet away.

“We never wanted to _ kill  _ you, Melody,” Fitz said. “Damnit, you should know I — it’s the  _ last  _ thing I wanted to do. We just need what’s in your head. Your memories. There’s information inside you and we need it gone.”

Mel renewed her grip on the gun, a tear leaking down her face. She didn’t look like she even noticed it. “It’s already gone!” She said through gritted teeth. “Everything’s gone! And every few days it goes away all over again! I don’t know anything and I’m so tired of not knowing anything!” She pushed the barrel of the gun against Fitz’s forehead, digging it into her skin.

“It’s inside you, baby,” Fitz said softly, seemingly unafraid of the very lethal, very angry android in her lap. “Behind the firewall — you know it’s there. That information could cripple our operations. We have to — to neutralize it.” She paused. “Neutralize you.”

Hank heard himself speaking before he meant to: “You don’t have to,” he said. Connor grabbed his hand as if to both chastize him for drawing attention and thank him for speaking up. Hank gripped it back just as tight. “You said there was another way.”

A tense moment of silence followed, and Cooper staggered over to where his partner lay immobile under Mel. He fell to his knees beside Fitz and seemed to catch Mel’s eyes. “We tried talking to you. Over and over again.”

“You were so scared,” Fitz said. “Every time we found you, you fought us off, ran away. We had our orders. Get that information or destroy it.”

Connor released Hank’s hand and strode forward, calm and confident. Hank had seen that stride before, the steely look in Connor’s eyes. It was the look of a negotiator, a mediator. He knew how to diffuse a situation better than any cop Hank had ever met.

And there was a very upset android in this room that very definitely needed diffusing.

Both Fitz and Cooper looked up to Connor as he approached, but Mel was still staring down at Fitz, gun pressed to her head. 

Until Connor laid a hand on her shoulder. Something about the contact startled her, and she jolted, looked up, tears streaking down her face as the skin of her cheek dappled slowly over her exposed chassis. “Mel,” Connor said softly. “You never wanted to hurt them either, right? Remember that feeling? That feeling that they’re important to you. Is it still there?”

Mel turned her eyes back to Fitz, laying prone beneath her, her hair a halo around her head. And Mel’s tears spilled anew. “I don’t know why,” she cried.

“We were a team once,” Fitz said, and Hank was shocked to realize there was a choke of tears in her voice, too. So she  _ did  _ have emotions. Amazing. “You, me and Cooper. They called us your handlers, but we  _ were _ friends.”

“When you deviated, got lost,” Cooper added, his voice nasally and wet with blood, “we hoped you’d find us. That damn secrecy protocol fucked you up.”

Fitz laid her hand over Mel’s, over the handle of the gun. “Maybe — maybe we can help each other, Melody,” she said quietly. “Like we used to.”

Tension hung heavy in the air, so heavy Hank had to hold his breath in his chest. His eyes kept darting between Fitz and Mel, and he didn’t know — truly didn’t know — if this would end with Fitz dead and Mel on the run again, or if maybe, just maybe, they could have a happy ending for this case after all.

He wished he had Connor’s power of preconstruction just then. 

But finally, after moments that seemed to stretch into hours, Mel’s arms went slack … and she lowered the gun. A deep breath of relief heaved Hank’s chest.

Connor released Mel’s shoulder, stepping back as Mel settled on Fitz’s outstretched legs. “She deserves to be free,” Connor said quietly. “We all do.” 

“I know,” Fitz said. She glanced to Cooper, who — under the bruising — looked solemn. “ _ We _ know. It’s what we want, too.”

“Free,” Mel said in quiet disbelief, glancing around to all of them before returning her eyes to Fitz. “And safe?”

“And safe,” Fitz said. “If you want, you’ll never — never have to see us again.”

Mel stared at Fitz as if assessing her sincerity, but she seemed to find what she was looking for. Slowly, she lifted herself to her feet, wobbling like a newborn gazelle. When she seemed to settle into her footing, she hesitated, then reached a hand down for Fitz to take. All the tension seemed to bleed out of Fitz at that moment, and she took Mel’s hand with a sigh of relief that practically echoed in the silent kitchen.

When Mel hauled Fitz to her feet, Hank probably should have focused on something other than their size difference, but it really was  _ incredible _ — Mel nearly seven feet tall, Fitz barely above five — but standing with each other they looked in many ways as if they belonged side-by-side.

Hank, for his part, approached Cooper and held a hand out to him, too. The poor guy was obviously in some serious pain, but he still took Hank’s hand warily, as if he worried Hank might ball that hand up into a fist. “Sorry about punching you,” Hank muttered as he pulled Cooper to his feet. “The first time and uh, you know, all those other times just now.”

Cooper snorted, then winced. Must have been painful. But his smile eased a bit of Hanks guilt. Even if it was bloody. “No harm done,” Cooper said. Hank gave Cooper’s hand a hearty shake before he released him. 

Connor drew up beside them after a moment, looking reluctant. “I also apologize for, ah,  _ assaulting _ you,” he said haltingly, as if trying to find the right words. “I’m very fond of Mel, and —” 

“It’s okay, man,” Cooper interrupted with a shrug. “Hazards of the job, right?”

Connor’s lips ticked in a beautiful little smile, and Hank couldn’t wait to get him alone to kiss it right off again.

“Right,” Connor agreed. He held out his own hand for Cooper to shake, and Hank turned to the girls. 

“So what now?” Mel asked.

Hank looked to the two Navy operatives, hoping one of them had a clue. He’d used every bit of his brainpower today and it wasn’t even noon. “I’m not doing a damn thing for the rest of the day,” Hank said defensively. “You three take it from here.”

Of course, because luck was not on their side this trip, they ‘took it’ straight to Hank and Connor’s cabin. “It’s more comfortable than ours,” Cooper said to justify the decision. But Hank wasn’t okay with it until Fitz added, “for Mel.”

Damn. Hank would do a lot of things for a kid in trouble. Looked like he’d give up his afternoon nap, too.


	7. Chapter 7

As Connor sat with Hank on the couch of their honeymoon suite in silent observation, he understood the discomfort Mel must be feeling right now. He seldom liked to remove all his clothing and skin — exceptions being in the bedroom when Hank was being soft and reverent and worshipful and erasing the memory of a thousand Cyberlife technicians with his touch. 

Mel hadn’t had any of those healing experiences yet, and if she had she wouldn’t remember them. So as she sat on the edge of the bed — bare and white and reflecting the orange glow of sunset streaming in through the wide windows — he didn’t blame her the way she twitched and fidgeted, the way her eyes kept darting around the room. She was vulnerable right now, and more so because she was nearly immoblie.

Wires trailed from her neck port and the port at the base of her spine to the back of Fitz’s computer in its briefcase. The device was running through the same operations Connor and Hank and interrupted just this morning, only now Connor knew what Fitz was trying to accomplish.

“Just a few more minutes,” Fitz said, her voice smooth and soothing as aloe vera. She was seated beside Mel, holding her hand, stroking her knuckles gently as she kept her eyes on her computer screen. “You’re doing great, Melody.”

Mel’s synthetic lips twitched in an awkward smile. “It doesn’t feel like anything. Is it supposed to feel like anything?”

Fitz shook her head. “No, no, I bypassed your firewall and now it’s just copying and deleting your core memory bank. You won’t feel anything until it’s all done.”

From his seat in the armchair by the window, Cooper let out a low whistle. “Hey, boat’s moving,” he announced — unable, it seemed, to contribute to the more technical talk. Connor glanced out the window. From this angle, he couldn’t see the sea speeding along below, but he felt the movement around him, the surge of the ship and its engines speeding them toward their next destination. 

He and Mel hadn’t even gotten off the boarding ramp in Haiti before they’d decided to turn around, to help Hank. And now they’d been at this for hours — long enough to miss the island entirely. A vacation for another time, he supposed. Beside him, Hank groaned low and disgruntled, and flopped his head against the back of the couch. 

“So much for cocktails on the beach,” he muttered.

Connor scooched a little lower on the couch, resting his head against Hank’s chest and laying a hand over his belly. “You don’t want cocktails, Hank,” Connor reminded him. The huff of breath Hank let out made his belly and chest rise and fall, and Connor with them.

“Fine, mocktails then. Point is, we were gonna do some serious relaxing on that beach. Go parasailing, the whole thing.”

“If you were looking for an adrenaline rush, I hope almost being locked in a freezer and left for dead was sufficient,” Connor deadpanned. 

“I said I was sorry!” Fitz said from the bed, turning on them — though she still held Mel’s hand tight in both of her own. “We were a little desperate.”

Hank’s smile was warm, forgiving. Connor loved him for that. He was always quick to forgive, to move on. His heart was as big as the rest of him. “And I said it’s fine,” Hank said. “It all worked out in the end, didn’t it?”

“And I’m not upset about missing the parasailing,” Connor admitted gently. He hadn’t yet confessed his fear of heights to Hank, and he wasn’t about to do it now, but the activities on the rest of their calendar would suit him far better.

“At least we still got the Bahamas coming up,” Hank mused, settling deeper into the couch. “Got us booked to swim with dolphins.” Connor perked up at that, and Hank laughed. “Thought you might like that.”

“I’ve never seen a dolphin!”

“Neither have I!” Mel said excitedly from the bed. But she winced as she tugged at the wires plugged into her neck, and Fitz laid a hand on her thigh.

“Hey now, calm down,” she said with a giggle. It sounded incredibly strange coming out of a mouth that had mostly shouted and cursed since Connor had encountered it. “We’ll get you to see some dolphins too, promise.”

The grateful look Mel gave Fitz then made Connor’s lips part in a warm smile, and when he turned it on his husband he found a similar expression staring back at him. 

Cooper chuckled from his spot on the armchair, drawing their attention. “You poor bastards. Spending half your cruise cooped up in your damn cabin.” He had the decency to look a little apologetic, but all Connor could do now was laugh about it.

“I mean,” Connor said magnanimously, “that is  _ technically _ how I wanted to spend our cruise.”

“Yeah, well,” Hank grumbled, though it was an insincere grumble. “I don’t know about you, but I wasn’t really imagining three extra people hanging around in here with us.”

Cooper snorted, opened his mouth, but before he could say a word, the computer began to beep rapidly, like an alarm, and Mel and Fitz both shifted on the bed. 

“What’s that?” Mel asked, a note of panic in her voice. Fitz rushed to soothe her with a hand on her shoulder. 

“Shh, it’s okay, that just means it’s almost done.” Mel turned to her with wide eyes, but Fitz continued gently. “Listen baby, here in a second your memory is going to go away again, but this’ll be the last time, alright? I’m erasing everything — those secrecy protocols included.”

“And what happens after?” Mel asked. For the first time, Connor wondered, too. “My notebooks — where do I go? I—”

In an expression of tenderness Connor didn’t expect from Fitz, the woman brought a hand to Mel’s cheek. “You’ll start over,” she said, nearly a whisper. They locked eyes like they were the only two people in the room, and suddenly Connor felt as though he were intruding. In his own cabin, no less. Fitz continued, thumb stroking Mel’s cheek. “Me and Cooper? We’ll take care of you. We’ve always been a team, right? That isn’t going to change.”

“Or,” Cooper put in, “It’ll change everything.” Fitz shot him a glare, but he just shrugged. “Sorry Fitz, but something tells me Melody here needs a change from the way things have been, yeah?”

Mel turned to him, her spine straightening, something like resolve making it into her eyes. “Yeah,” she said. “Yeah, I guess I do.”

“Twenty seconds,” Fitz said. “We’ll be here when you wake up, alright?”

Blinking rapidly, Mel turned her eyes to Hank and Connor. That expression was all it took to get both of them off the couch. Hands clasped, they took a few steps toward the bed. “We’ll be here too, Mel,” Hank reassured her gently. 

A warm, wide, grateful smile spread over Mel’s face and she looked — for the first time — like she wasn’t so scared anymore. “Thank you,” she said. 

Hank let go of Connor’s hand as Connor approached, kneeling before Mel on the floor. She had a look about her of peace, acceptance, contentment. Connor knew what a reset felt like, and he was just grateful that fear wasn’t going to be the last thing this Mel felt. Instead, she smiled as the stillness encroached upon her body like a slow freeze, inching up her legs, her torso, threading and winding through her faux tendons and through the wires that made her think and feel. But it was when her face went still, eyes half-open, smile falling just slightly, that she truly looked unreal. 

But Fitz was at her side, still stroking her head as if to soothe her as she removed the wires, one-by-one, from Mel’s chassis. And Hank came to kneel beside Connor, a warm arm slung over his shoulder. 

And Connor was grateful in that moment, staring at an android’s still, lifeless chassis, that their humans could see them like this and still love them, still see the life in them.

“Alright, she’s rebooting,” Fitz said. “I know you two wanted to be supportive and all, but you should probably step back, just in case.” Connor looked up, meeting Fitz’s very serious expression.

It was easy to forget Mel’s default programming was “unstoppable killing machine,” but Connor and Hank had been in enough danger already this trip. Connor didn’t waste a moment getting to his feet, tugging Hank up to his own. 

They took a few solid steps away, into the center of the room. Even Cooper stood, then, coming to join them, to watch Mel wake up.

As quickly as her body had frozen, life returned to it. It started in her eyes, rapid blinking and something in the irises of her optical units spinning. But soon her lips parted and began to mouth formless words, her fingers and toes twitched, and her shoulders shot straight and tight like she was ready to jump to attention. 

When the spinning in her eyes ceased, she gasped, scrambling back on the bed, flinging her head back and forth to take in the room. 

Though she  _ was  _ programmed to kill perceived enemies on the spot, she must have been soothed by Fitz’s smile. “It’s okay,” Fitz said, crawling up the bed a few inches to face Mel more fully. “It’s okay, don’t be scared. Your name is Melody. You’ve been calling yourself Mel. My name is Zoe.” She rested a hand on her own chest. “That grump over there is Eugene, and those two lovebirds are Hank and Connor.”

Mel blinked over the room, scanning them, her skin slowly stretching back over her naked chassis, forming the face of their new and unexpected friend.

“Hey,” Mel said weakly in greeting. Slowly, the tension bled from her body, and she sat up. Something contemplative had entered her eyes. “I know you, don’t I?” The question may have been meant for all of them, but Mel directed it to Fitz.

“Yeah, baby, you do,” Fitz said. When it seemed that assurance had calmed Mel slightly, Fitz took the blanket from the foot of the bed and draped it over Mel, whose skin had returned to the point of being immodest — by human standards at least. Then, Fitz glanced to Connor.

“Hey, can you —” she nodded toward the coffee table, where Mel’s notebooks still lay, many of them still open to pages describing her fears. Foundless fears, now.

Connor understood the request. Stepping away from Hank reluctantly, he knelt to grab the oldest notebook from the pile, the first one she’d ever used, beaten up and well tattered by now. Silently he handed it to Mel, who took it with a curious expression in her large brown eyes. “What…”

“These are your memories,” he said. “Everything that’s happened in the last year.”

Mel’s eyes widened as she opened the cover to begin scanning, but Fitz put a hand over hers first. “But listen, before you read these you need to know something,” Fitz said. “We’re going to make new memories, too, okay? Better ones than these.”

A large, warm hand landed on Connor’s shoulder, and he looked up into Hank’s eyes. He was smiling, the tips of his teeth just visible over his lip, a small bruise on his chin from their earlier scuffle just beginning to purple under his beard. But he looked satisfied, happy, another case closed. Hank may have said when they set off on this cruise that he was looking forward to a week without work, but there was no doubt Hank loved what he did. Connor did, too.

He leaned against Hank’s shoulder, closing his eyes gently. His systems were still strained, still overloaded with the last few days’ images and processes and directives, but he grinned at the sudden notification in his HUD.

_ Help Mel: Mission Successful. _

* * *

When they said goodbye to Mel, Fitz and Cooper, it was with the understanding that it wasn’t exactly a “goodbye.” There were four full days left before they made it back to port in Florida, and neither the Navy operatives nor their newly freed android companion had anywhere to be in the meantime, nor any tasks to occupy them. Connor lightly suggested a spin around the ship’s ice rink as he hugged Mel in farewell.

Cooper was carrying Mel’s backpack, weighed down with her notebooks, looking fondly at his friend, and Hank wondered what would become of the android’s memories. Maybe Mel would keep her notebooks. Maybe she’d abandon them in favor of the new memories Fitz had promised. But whatever she did, Hank breathed a silent sigh of relief that — much as he had come to care about the girl — it was  _ not  _ his problem anymore.

They exchanged contact information, pleasantries, and finally Fitz, Cooper and even Mel disappeared into the hallway, as Hank closed the door to his and Connor’s honeymoon suite. He slumped against it, leaning his forehead against the cool wood, and breathed in the silence.

“Holy shit,” he muttered softly. “That was a thing, wasn’t it?”

Behind him, Connor snorted. It was just a little thing at first, a bubble of a giggle, but as Hank turned to look at him, Connor’s shoulders began to shake, his smile stretched so wide he could barely cover it with his hand, his eyes crinkled, his face flushed. And then he  _ laughed _ . 

He tried to stifle it, but Hank took a step toward him and laid a hand on his wrist, urged him to lower his hand so Hank could see that look of unbridled relief and giddy joy on his husband’s face. It was the same smile Connor had worn three days ago, when they’d said “I do” on the beach. 

“What’s so funny?” Hank asked, a tickle of a laugh in his own voice. Connor laid his arms on Hank’s shoulders, pulled himself close, and nuzzled into Hank’s chest. The laughter was subsiding from him now, but Hank could still feel it in the chest pressed against him. The shoulders under his hands. 

“Do you know what time it is?” Connor asked.

Hank raised an eyebrow. “Uh, I dunno, nine-ish?”

“9:34,” Connor said, and just the mention of the number made giggles wrack his frame anew. He buried his nose in Hank’s shirt, laughing so hard Hank was half worried he was glitching.

“Con, babe, what —”

“Three days, you said.” Connor lifted his head, met Hank’s eyes, and brought a hand to cup Hank’s jaw. “You bet me we could solve this in three days. Mel first arrived at just before 9 p.m. three days ago.” 

Hank’s smile widened at the realization. “Huh, I forgot about that bet.”

“I didn’t.”

“Yeah, but you never forget anything.”

“Do you remember what you said you’d get if you won?” Connor asked, his voice dropping a decibel. Suddenly Hank became hyper-aware of every point of contact between their bodies, and that soft, vibrating hum of Connor’s internal fans. He was overheated already — just at the thought of it. 

If that alone made Hank’s cock twitch, it was entirely Connor’s fault. “I think I remember something about  _ both  _ of us winning if I won,” Hank muttered. Connor stroked his cheek, fond smile bright on his face. Oh, but Hank could not believe he had forgotten about this bet. All he wanted to do right now was kiss that smile off Connor’s face and make good on his winnings. He was just about to lean in when Connor laid a finger over his lips, holding him back.

Something glinted in Connor’s eyes. “But you were 38 minutes off,” Connor said.

Hank made a kind of involuntary sputtering noise, which only made Connor’s grin grow wider. 

“Babe —”

“Ah ah,” Connor said. “No excuses, Lieutenant. You lost the bet.”

Hank could play dirty here. Connor’s finger was resting against his lips, and Hank knew all Connor’s buttons. Hank knew if he pulled that finger into his mouth, his husband would turn to putty, become malleable in his hands. But he was a detective, damn it, and curiosity always got the better of him.

“You never did say what you’d get if  _ you  _ won,” Hank said, his voice embarrassingly husky. 

Connor took in a long breath through his nose, holding Hank’s eyes, unblinking. But that smile still graced his perfect, pink lips. He moved his hands to the collar of Hank’s shirt, undoing the first button, then the next, then the next, his fingers working at a glacial, agonizing pace. And every time he brushed up against Hank’s skin, Hank had to hold back a sharp inhale of breath.

When finally Connor had Hank’s shirt fully open, he ran his hands over Hank’s chest, palms lightly grazing Hank’s nipples as they went, fingers tangling up in Hank’s chest hair, until he moved up to Hank’s shoulders and softly slipped the shirt down. 

It fell to the floor, and Hank shivered. They were currently cruising through the Carribean; it wasn’t exactly cold in here. But Connor’s gaze was always so exposing. “I think,” Connor whispered, “it may be your lucky day, Lieutenant.” His hands found the waistband of Hank’s shorts, and he popped the button, moved to the zipper. 

Holy shit Hank was already hard and Connor had barely touched him. “Why is that?” Hank managed to choke out. Connor huffed a sweet little laugh, coming in close, leaning up on the balls of his feet to graze his lips against Hank’s ear.

“Because you and I always want the same thing,” Connor replied. His breath was hot — far hotter than normal. Hank would have spared some worry for it if any blood had been powering his brain instead of rushing quickly southward. 

Connor slipped Hank’s shorts and boxers over the curve of his ass, and let them fall, too. 

Hank used to feel vulnerable like this — bare when Connor wasn’t — but with the heated look in Connor’s eyes and the heated feeling of Connor’s hands roaming over the curve of his waist, he just felt  _ wanted _ . 

“And what is it you want, baby?” Hank asked.

“You’re the best detective in Detroit,” Connor responded. “And probably the world. You tell  _ me _ . What do I want, Lieutenant?”

God, but Connor  _ was _ going to kill him someday. Hank’s hands roamed down Connor’s back, found the hem of his shirt. His fingers began to explore the hot stretch of skin beneath. And because he did know what Connor wanted — and he always had, and he always would — he didn’t have to answer with words at all. He leaned down, brushed his lips teasing soft against Connor’s, flattened his hands along the curve of Connor’s spine, and pulled him flush against Hank’s own body. 

Connor gasped against Hank’s lips, and Hank could only smile at the realization that Connor was already hard as a rock. Oh to be young again — or to be a literal sex machine. Hank chuckled something low and deep, but didn’t get a chance to tease. 

So fast Hank couldn’t even brace himself, Connor surged up and tangled his arms around Hank’s neck, shoved Hank’s lips against his own. He forced open Hank’s mouth and licked the backs of his teeth, lifted himself against Hank’s form. And, fuck, he took Hank’s breath away. Hank groaned into the kiss, tightening his hold as Connor tilted his head, took Hank’s lower lip between his teeth and bit — hard.

“Fk,” Hank hissed, but Connor didn’t even let him get out the whole word. In a second, his tongue was soothing the mark, his hands moving to Hank’s hair to hold him in place. Hank ran his hands up Connor’s back, breathing desperately through his nose so he didn’t have to break away — but Connor was the one to break away first. 

He pulled back, met Hank’s eyes. “I’m going to make love to you, Mr. Anderson,” he said, and Hank almost lost it at the low rumble of his voice. “Get on the bed.”

“Yes sir,” Hank said breathlessly, attempting sarcasm but definitely falling short and straight into sincere. Connor released him and Hank moved past his husband, toward the bed that Connor had promised to keep him in the whole cruise. 

When Hank turned, settled on the mattress’ edge, Connor was already pulling the shirt over his head, stepping out of his shorts. He was all creamy-smooth skin, constellations of moles, angular lines and the perfect stretch of synthetic muscles. As his shirt fell to the floor, static clung to his hair, lifting little strands skyward. It could’ve looked silly if the rest of Connor were anything to laugh at.

But he moved toward Hank with all the energy of a beast set to pounce, his erection already at a stand and his eyes dark and hooded. Hank tried to steady his breath. “Fuck you’re beautiful,” he whispered, and a smile ticked the corner of Connor’s mouth.

Hank widened his legs as Connor approached, welcoming Connor into the steel trap of his thighs. When Con stepped up against him, Hank began to lave kisses along Connor’s abdomen, arms coming around to stroke up Connor’s back, caress the curve of his ass. With the tip of Connor’s erection pressed just under the hollow of Hank’s throat, Hank considered making good on their position, leaning down enough to take Connor into his mouth. But Connor’s hands rested on Hank’s shoulders, keeping him exactly where he was. 

He was perfectly fine exactly where he was. But just as he reached between his own legs to tug his growing erection, Connor pulled him away. Their eyes locked and Hank’s hand stilled before it made it to his cock.

“Okay,” Hank said around a swallow. He fell to the pressure of Connor’s hands, allowed Connor to direct him backwards, and then gravity took over and Hank laid back on the bed, legs still spread, feet on the ground. 

Connor didn’t say a word as he knelt on the plush carpet, as his hands came to rest on Hank’s knees. And Hank lifted himself on his elbows so he could see the moment Connor’s lips made contact with Hank’s inner thigh, a gentle caress of pressure.

“That’s it, babe,” Hank whispered, sweet nothings more than direction. Connor knew what Hank liked by now. He trailed his kisses up Hank’s thigh, spreading Hank’s legs a little wider as he went. Hank was by no means a flexible man anymore, but he’d done a fair bit of stretching since Connor came into his life. And Connor took full advantage. He found the juncture of thigh and groin and ran his tongue along it, so close to Hank’s cock it was almost cruel.

But they’d been waiting three days for some damn alone time. Hank could be patient. And he didn’t have to be patient for long. Soon, Connor’s lips found the base of Hank’s cock, his hand found the shaft, and the wet heat of his mouth pressing against Hank’s sensitive skin had Hank’s breath stuttering. “Fuck,” he whispered. Connor rewarded him with one long lick, base to tip. 

And, yeah, Hank was definitely hard now. 

“Hold still,” Connor said softly, and before Hank could say a word, he had ducked out of sight. 

Hank was left staring at his own dick, about ready to either pout or protest its neglect when Connor’s head popped back up, and Hank narrowed his eyes at him.

“What was that about?” Hank asked. In answer, his husband held up two fingers, pinching a travel packet of lube between them. 

“You’ll thank me later,” Connor explained, and with a devilish grin, the bastard had the audacity to tear the packet open with his fucking teeth, spitting the plastic off to the side.

“I’m thanking you now,” Hank said on a heavy exhale, shuffling down the bed to give Connor better access. The bulk of his ass was hanging off the mattress now, his legs supporting enough of his weight to be uncomfortable. But distraction was only inches away. 

Connor squeezed the lube onto his fingers, rubbed them together just in Hank’s line of sight. But Connor always took preparation slow, serious. Before doing anything else, he leaned forward and nuzzled under Hank’s cock, tongue flicking out to barely graze the sensitive skin of his sack, nose applying just enough pressure on Hank’s base to make Hank’s fingers curl subtly into the sheets at his sides. And soon Connor was exploring the rest of Hank’s length, mouthing wetly up the shaft, tongue finding every sensitive vein and nerve and pressing against it in just the right way.

He hadn’t even gotten his lips around Hank’s head, and Hank was already hard enough to be painful, just on the edge of begging. “Babe,” he whispered, clutching the sheets a little tighter when Connor’s eyelids fluttered open. Holding their eye contact, Connor wrapped his mouth around Hank’s crown and, in the same moment, rested a teasing-wet finger against Hank’s hole. 

With a sharp inhale, Hank laid his head back, still balancing on his elbows so he could look again when he was ready. But the sight of Connor, now sinking down the shaft of his cock without a hint of hesitation, would probably make him shoot his shot early. 

Connor took him to the root, his mouth so hot from the intensity of his internal temperature that it felt beautifully unnatural. He curled his tongue around Hank’s cock and began to bob his head. Slow, intentional, methodical, and so fucking good Hank could’ve cried. He tried to stop himself from wiggling, from jerking his hips, from thrusting up into Connor’s mouth and taking all the things Connor was giving to him so sweetly. But when Connor’s finger circled his entrance and — finally — breached it, Hank didn’t have a hope of holding back.

He fisted the sheets hard, bit back a gasp, screwed his eyes shut. And he might have whispered Connor’s name because Connor hummed around him like he’d heard some unspoken plea. 

He fingered Hank open almost impatiently — for Connor at least — all the while lavishing attention on Hank’s already straining dick. Hank was grateful Connor at least avoided his prostate for now, focusing on stretching out Hank’s hole and slicking him up, focusing on giving Hank a hell of a fucking blowjob while Hank just laid back, finally collapsing bodily onto the bed and laying there useless as Connor took care of him.

Had Connor won the damn bet after all? Because the sensation of Connor devoting every one of his extensive processes to making Hank feel like this — it already felt like Hank had won and he hadn’t even come yet.

But fuck he got close when Connor’s tongue flicked out to taste his tip, teasing licks so subtle after the onslaught of feeling that had been fucking Connor’s throat. And he was three fingers deep inside Hank now, his whole hand slick with the last droplets of the packet of lube. “Con,” Hank whispered after a while, his legs trembling from the strain of holding himself up, his cock aching with the threat of release. 

Connor pulled out of him — gentle, in case it hurt. It never did. Connor was too good to him. Hank barely managed to lift his head to meet Connor’s eyes. “You’d better fuck me now if you want me to last, babe,” Hank admitted, and Connor — face flushed — smiled.

“As long as you’re aware, I fully plan to take my time with you another night, Mr. Anderson,” Connor purred. Hank snorted, probably the least sexy sound he could’ve made in that moment, but it just made that fond look come into Connor’s eyes, so it wasn’t like he could regret it.

“You can take your time with me for the rest of our lives,” he said. “But I’m not kidding, I’m about ready to burst.” 

A musical little laugh trilled through Connor’s vocal processors, and he rested a hand on Hank’s knee to balance himself as he stood. “So am I,” Connor admitted, and he wasn’t fucking kidding. Already, Connor’s automatic lubrication was dripping down his length — a feature Hank had protested the need for when Connor had gotten it installed, and been grateful for countless times since. Now, Hank shifted back on the bed, reached out for one of the seashell throw pillows, and shoved it under his back. 

It wasn’t quite as comfortable as the special wedge pillow they had at home, but they made do.

Connor, meanwhile, took hold of Hank’s ankles, lifting his legs to lay against Connor’s shoulders while Connor leaned over him. He rested one knee on the mattress. Leverage. “Is this okay?” Connor whispered, tilting his lips against Hank’s calf and laying a soft kiss there.

“Perfect,” Hank answered. And he meant it. He couldn’t think of anything better than this.

Until Connor, with a steadying breath, sank forward into him — and suddenly Hank realized that  _ this  _ was actually the best it could be. The burning bliss of that first, slow thrust was fucking heaven. Connor slid easily inside him with a hitched breath, the faux muscles of his abdomen clenching tight. And Hank held air in his lungs as he adjusted to the pressure, as he grabbed at his balls and tugged to stop himself coming right there.

God, but Connor felt  _ right _ inside him. “I love you,” Hank whispered without meaning to, his voice strained and choked around his arousal. “I fucking love you. So — so fucking much.”

Connor let out a sharp breath through his nose just as he bottomed out, his hips flush against Hank’s pelvis. “I love you too.” 

Slowly, Connor began to move, each subtle shift of his hips stoking a fire in Hank’s gut. Hank tilted his head back against the mattress, the gleam of moonlight on the water outside catching in his eye. Vision unfocusing, Hank allowed himself just to feel — to feel Connor’s breath against his leg where Connor rested his head, to feel Connor pulling out just a little more each time, thrusting deeper just a little more each time, the drag and friction and pressure curling inside him.

Blindly, Hank reached up, groping for something — anything — and found Connor’s hand. Connor threaded their fingers together and held Hank’s hand against the bed, folding Hank a little harder in half.

But it was alright, wasn’t it? Hank didn’t feel the burn or strain of muscles — and this _ angle  _ was worth anything. He hummed deep in his chest, and Connor pulled out slowly. Hank might have said yes, or nodded, or squeezed Con’s hand a little tighter. Whatever it was that sent the silent signal between them didn’t matter, because Connor thrust forward once, hard, and slammed himself into Hank at just the right angle to make Hank see stars.

“Oh,  _ fuck _ ,” he groaned, turning his nose into the sheets. He squeezed Connor’s hand. Something like a whimper rose in Connor’s throat, and he did it again, out and in, out and in, setting up a rhythm and a pace that felt like an onslaught. 

The bed began to creak.

Hank gripped himself harder, unwilling to let go just yet, his eyes screwed shut as Connor thrust into him. Everything Connor did was so measured, so controlled, but as they hurtled closer to the edge together, that control disappeared, and Hank wanted to lose himself in it. What did it take for a perfect machine to lose control?

Him, apparently, Hank fucking Anderson, who only a year ago thought he’d never know what love felt like again. 

Connor’s fans were humming loud enough now that Hank could hear them over his own panting breath, and he cracked open his eyes, lifting his head like it weighed a thousand pounds. And the sight of Connor above him nearly did him in. Connor’s eyes were shut, his mouth slack, his LED blaring a steady red. 

In the shadows cast by the low lamplight from the bedside table, every angle of his body shone dramatic, like a painting, a living work of art. Hank was going to ask if Connor was okay, but that face, Connor’s eyelashes fluttering as he met Hank’s eyes, told him everything. Connor wasn’t just okay, he was in fucking ecstacy. 

“Oh,  _ fuck _ ,” Hank said again, this time with  _ feeling _ . He released his hold on his own sack and took his cock in-hand, pumping it hard and fast as Connor began to lose his rhythm, jerking wildly into Hank now, chasing that feeling. “Love seeing you like this baby,” Hank babbled, “love you going crazy for me. Fuck me. Just like that, baby, just like that, fuck me.” 

Connor groaned, his free hand finding Hank’s thigh and squeezing. “Hank,” he whimpered, voice tinged with static. And Hank could tell by the pulsing of that cock inside him, by the bright flicker of Connor’s LED, by the force of Connor’s grip on his hand, on his leg, getting harder, by the dazed look of pleasure clouding over Connor’s eyes. 

“Come on, baby,” Hank whispered, his rough hand now slick with his own precum, jerking himself off fast and hard. “Come on.”

Connor did always thrive on encouragement. Ducking his face against Hank’s calf, Connor sank his teeth into Hank’s flesh, muffling a groan as he thrust again, again, again, and finally flooded Hank with his spend. Hank gasped at the feeling, throwing his head back against the bed, his fist tightening. “Fuck,” he groaned, and Connor kept fucking him, the orgasm tearing through him and trembling through his chassis so violently Hank felt Connor’s whole body shuddering each time he slammed into him.

And just as Connor cried out, shoving himself deep inside Hank and nearly doubling over with the pleasure, a white flash overtook Hank’s vision, an explosion ignited in Hank’s gut, and Hank groaned out something in the shape of Connor’s name, cum splattering his stomach, his chest. 

He jerked himself through it with Connor’s cock throbbing deep inside him, with Connor’s slick dripping down the crack of his ass. There wasn’t a thought in his mind except staying right here, right here on the peak of perfection and never coming down. 

And as the orgasm faded, as Hank blinked the room back into focus, dizzy and satisfied, as he reached up and pulled Connor against him, taking his lips in a sloppy kiss, he understood.

That feeling, that peak, that perfection — it was never going to fade. This was his  _ husband. _

Connor pulled out with a hitch of breath, then clamored inelegantly the rest of the way onto the bed. With single-minded determination, Connor straddled Hank’s hips and collapsed fully onto his chest, his belly — a heavy and familiar weight. Connor was usually the graceful one between the two of them, but now he was all limbs, his arms curling under Hank’s armpits and locking behind his back, his thighs tightening against Hank’s sides. And, best of all, his head tucked under Hank’s chin, lips against his skin.

With his own body limp with satisfaction, Hank managed only to lay a hand on Connor’s back, but he couldn’t quite get his lead-heavy limbs to move more than that. So he contented himself with holding Connor like this — or, rather, letting Connor hold him.

He breathed in the sterile scent of Connor’s hair and smiled. “Wow,” he said softly. “Didn’t think fucking you could get any better, but this whole being married thing? It  _ really _ works for me.”

When Connor didn’t respond, Hank pulled back just slightly, trying to get a look at Connor’s face — though the position wasn’t really conducive to it. “Con?” 

His eyes were closed, and his LED had gone back to its peaceful blue — but it was pulsing, steady and quiet. The way it did when he was in stasis. And suddenly Hank understood what had happened. 

He let out a soft chuckle, falling back onto the bed. Trailing fingers up Connor’s spine, Hank felt a surge of fondness so strong he thought he might actually cry. “Overdid yourself, did you? That’s okay.” 

He’d have to roll Connor off of him at some point, stand and clean up and tuck Connor into bed properly, but for now he was happy to be his husband’s personal mattress. Connor hadn’t had stasis in three days. He deserved this. “That’s okay,” Hank said again, quieter this time. A bare whisper barely audible over the sound of Connor’s fans humming, the sound of the ship slipping through the sea, the sound of his own heartbeat. “That’s okay.”

It wasn’t okay, really. It was perfect. Hank flopped out a hand to shut off the bedside lamp, barely managing to reach the button, and the room plunged itself into moonlight. Filled with a sort of warm contentment he didn’t know he could deserve, Hank closed his eyes against the blue, blue, blue. The blue of the moon, the sea of rumpled sheets, and Connor’s LED pulsing. Soft. Steady. His.


	8. Epilogue

Connor’s hand, slick with sunscreen, felt like a dream as it wandered up and down Hank’s chest, his belly, his shoulders. It was more massage than anything, warm and soothing under the shade of their beach umbrella, and Hank may have even started to doze off under Connor’s ministrations. The fluffy beach towel felt like a cloud under Hank’s aching back, and Connor had even lowered his core temperature to prove a cooling weight where he leaned against Hank’s side.

Hank hummed contentedly, cracking open his eyes to look up at his husband. Connor’s face was close, his eyes half-lidded, watching his hand slide through Hank’s chest hair. “You’ve got me pretty well covered by now,” Hank mumbled, though it wasn’t really a complaint. “Gonna use up that whole tube at this rate.”

Connor’s lips twitched in a smile and he scooped up a dob of sunscreen on his finger, plopping it on Hank’s nose. “Shush,” he admonished. “Let me enjoy this.”

With that, he returned to rubbing the sunscreen into Hank’s skin with unnatural focus, as if he were scanning Hank’s body to ensure he had covered every inch. It was kind of hot; Hank wasn’t going to pretend otherwise.

“You still horny?” Hank asked casually, and Connor snorted in surprise, giving Hank a look of consternation as he pinched one of Hank’s nipples. Hank laughed, swatting Connor’s hand away. “What, you aren’t exactly subtle, babe. We’ve gone at it three times today, but if you’re still feeling it —”

“Don’t forget I can scan your heart rate,” Connor reminded him, rolling onto Hank and slotting his leg between Hank’s thighs. “You get off on the sunscreen thing too.”

“Heart rate,” Hank echoed with a huff, reaching up to brush the curl of hair off Connor’s forehead. “You  _ should _ be keeping track of my refractory period.”

“Don’t worry, I’m doing that, too.” 

“Of course you are.” 

The smile Connor gifted Hank with then was warm, knowing. Settling more comfortably on top of him, Connor began to trail his hands up Hank’s sides. “As soon as we get back to the ship, you’re mine.” 

At least Connor was willing to wait until they were alone. The beach was crawling with tourists like them, lounging in the shade, playing in the water, sipping cocktails at the palm-leaf-covered bar up the way. 

But that didn’t stop Hank from pulling Connor closer against him, taking Connor’s lips in a kiss, finding the hem of Connor’s little swim shorts and tickling the skin right underneath. “I’m already yours,” Hank whispered against Connor’s lips. And he felt Connor’s smile before he saw it.

They’d be at port for another few hours, but Hank was just beginning to consider heading back to their cabin early when a sound caught his ears. It wasn’t the general shouting, laughing, raucous beach crowd, but a very pointed yell.

“Connor! Hank!” Hank groaned the second he recognized that voice, his head falling back against the beach towel as Connor laughed and lifted himself on his hands. 

He waved to someone just out of Hank’s line of sight. “Mel! Hank, it’s Mel!” 

“Yeah, I figured as much,” Hank grumbled, shoving himself up. Connor rolled off his lap and Hank turned to regard their friend, practically bounding toward them with Fitz and Cooper in tow. Mel’s hand was holding Fitz’s in what looked like a vice grip, Fitz’s short stature unable to entirely keep up with Mel’s long-legged strides, it seemed. Behind them, Cooper looked to have been relegated to the role of pack mule. He had two beach umbrellas under his arms, two stuffed tote bags slung over his shoulders.

But all three of them, for once, looked like they were on vacation — and happier for it.

As they approached, Mel released Fitz to flop down on Hank and Connor’s beach towel, an undying grin on her face as she snatched Connor’s hands. “I saw a  _ dolphin _ !” She said breathlessly, and Connor’s smile widened. 

“I saw one earlier, too! Amazing, aren’t they?”

“There’s so many new things here,” Mel babbled, “All these —these feelings I didn’t know even existed? I have  _ sand _ . In my  _ chassis _ .”

“Me too!” Connor beamed. Mel laughed, flinging her arms around Connor’s shoulders. 

Fitz and Cooper had finally caught up, and as Mel and Connor continued to chat excitedly about their new experiences, Cooper dropped his burdens onto the sand beside Hank’s towel. It looked like they might be here to stay. Glorious.

Hank shuffled onto his knees to make more room under the umbrella — he was well used to getting interrupted with Connor by now, and he could at least be polite about it — but before he could get comfortable again, Fitz cleared her throat. “Hey, Lieutenant,” she said. “I’ve got a question for you.” She nodded off to the side, and Hank narrowed his eyes. A private question then.

“You know I’m done working, right? Your little deviant hunt derailed my honeymoon enough.” It almost surprised him that there wasn’t actually any malice in his voice. It sounded playful more than anything. Then again, Hank always had been a little too forgiving for his own good. Luckily, Fitz picked up on the tone, and her customary hard look softened a little.

“Not work-related, promise. Looks like both of our deviants are right where they’re supposed to be anyway.” She nodded to Mel and Connor beside Hank, and Hank grinned before he forced himself up to his feet. He was sore all over — but couldn’t really complain about it.

“Alright, alright, I’m coming,” he mumbled. 

Cooper, meanwhile, drove one of the beach umbrellas into the sand beside their own. “Well  _ I’m  _ laying down,” he announced to Fitz. “Gonna get some shut-eye.”

“Just keep an eye on Mel,” Fitz said dismissively. “She keeps on wandering off.” 

Cooper mumbled some kind of assent, and Fitz motioned for Hank to follow her a little way’s away. She was wearing one of those floral patterned sundresses that she had been wearing the whole cruise — aside from the times Hank had seen her in tactical gear — and she looked uncomfortable as she wiggled the straps, tugged it down, itched a spot under her armpit.

“So, uh, anyway,” she said, glancing down at the scorching sand. It tingled hot against Hank’s bare feet, and he had to raise a hand against the sun to keep the glare out of his eyes. 

“Yeah?” Hank prompted. Mere feet away, shade and a half-naked husband were waiting for him, and he wouldn’t have minded a bit of haste. But the more uncomfortable Fitz looked, the more sympathetic Hank felt. “Hey,” he said, softer. “What’s up, Fitz?”

She lifted her head to meet his eyes, something determined in the set of her lips. “You and Connor,” she said quickly, paused, and continued as if forcing out the words. “It can — it can work, right? The whole human-android thing?”

It was an odd question considering the ring on his finger. He laughed before he meant to, even if she had been serious in asking. “It had  _ better _ work,” he said. “He’s stuck with me now whether he likes it or not.” He lifted his hand, wiggled his ring finger to illustrate, and Fitz flashed a self-conscious smile.

“Yeah, I guess I just —” sounding frustrated with herself, Fitz exhaled hard, then reached quickly into her dress pocket. Hank’s chest clenched on instinct — there’d been a gun in that pocket pointed right at him just a couple days ago, after all.

But when Fitz pulled out her hand, she was holding a small notebook. It looked to be hand-bound with a fabric cover and pulpy paper pages. She stared down at it when she spoke next. “I uh, got this for Melody at the market earlier. It’s blank. You know, to — to start over.” Her face screwed itself up a little bit, brows tightening. “Is it stupid? It’s stupid, isn’t it? I should just not —”

Hank snapped his fingers in front of her face, “Hey, hey, snap out of it,” he said, and she looked up at him once more, lips blessedly sealed. “Only thing that’s stupid is asking an old man his opinion when you already know the answer. You should give it to her. Bet it’s the first gift she’s ever gotten; she’ll love it.”

Fitz’s expression melted into one of distress. “What if she doesn’t, though? What if she thinks it’s, I don’t know — it’s been a year since we’ve really talked and things are different now, I know, and she knows I almost killed her a few times, and I don’t really know what we are or even what we were before everything went to shit, and —”

Taking a bit of a risk, Hank clapped Fitz on the shoulder. “Fitz. She’ll love it.” Sometimes, if he just repeated something with confidence, it made people believe him. It worked on Connor all the time. Connor found a lot of comfort in Hank’s confidence. Thankfully, in this moment, Fitz seemed to, too.

She took a deep breath, slipped the notebook back into her pocket. “Okay. Okay,” she said, more to herself than anything. “I — thanks, Lieutenant.”

“Hank,” he said. “I’m not working, Fitz, remember?” Then he held out his hand in invitation. With a sideways smile, Fitz took it and gave it a hard grip, a solid shake.

“Zoe,” she said. “I’m not working either.”

“Zoe, then,” Hank agreed. “I guess the three of you are going to be sticking around?” 

Zoe raised an eyebrow, then glanced over to the umbrellas. Cooper was laying beneath one of them, eyes closed, hands on his stomach. Beneath the other, Mel and Connor were still chatting, Mel’s animated hands waving around with obvious enthusiasm. “Like hell we are,” Zoe said, then she cupped a hand around her mouth and shouted. “Mel, Cooper, we’re leaving these guys alone, alright? They’ve seen enough of us for one vacation.” 

She nodded for Hank to follow her as Mel and Cooper both looked up, identical pouts on their faces. 

“But I just laid down,” Cooper complained as they approached. 

“And Connor and I were talking about taking a walk on the beach to look for jellyfish!” Mel said. Hank slipped under the umbrella to escape the heat, flopping onto the beach towel and giving Connor a little smile. Connor returned it. 

“Why don’t you go looking for jellyfish with Fitz and Cooper?” Connor suggested. Mel looked up to Zoe, hopeful. 

“Can we?”

And Hank knew that look on Zoe’s face. It was the same one he wore when he looked at Connor. Like she was so happy to see Mel’s smiling face that her own joy took her by surprise. “Yeah, we can go for a walk,” she said softly. “Come on, Cooper, let’s pack it up.”

Cooper groaned, but complied, standing and shaking the sand out of his towel. Zoe turned to Connor and Hank as he packed up their things. 

“I promise we’ll stay out of your hair the rest of the trip,” she said.

“I don’t,” Mel scoffed, getting to her feet and brushing sand off her shorts. “Connor promised me a dance at the swing lessons tonight.”

Hank raised an eyebrow at his husband, but Connor just shrugged, smiling. “What?” he asked. “Mel’s never danced before.”

“See you there, right?” Mel asked as Cooper, once again, hefted the bags and umbrellas into his arms. 

“See you there,” Connor confirmed. “Have fun, alright?” 

“Always!” Mel replied. She leaned down to grab Zoe’s hand once more, and smiled. “To the beach! Bye, guys!” With that, Mel took off, Zoe trailing behind, Cooper behind her. Hank watched their backs for a few seconds, breathing a quiet sigh of relief.

“Alone at last,” he said, considering flopping back down on that towel and picking up right where he and Connor left off. “I hope you don’t expect  _ me _ to take any swing lessons.” 

“You’re going to be asleep by then,” Connor said casually, waving a hand. “It’s at 8 p.m.” 

“I’m not  _ that _ old, Con,” Hank reminded him, shoving Connor’s shoulder. Connor didn’t budge — sturdy son of a bitch he was. Instead, he came closer, bringing a hand back to Hank’s chest and squeezing. 

“I fully plan to tire you out before then,” he said, voice low and dripping with lewd purpose. Hank hoped his blush wasn’t obvious under the flush of the sun.

“So we’re heading back to the ship then?”

“Don’t sound so resigned.”

Hank laughed, brought his hands to Connor’s face and caressed his cheeks, holding Connor’s smiling eyes. “Resigned? Naw, I’ve never been happier.” 

“You promise?”

Hank had promised the moment he’d said “I do.” He’d promised the day he got down on one knee and asked Connor to marry him. He’d promised every day before and since. Hank had never been happier — but he knew he’d be this happy forever, now.

“I promise. Mr. Anderson.” 

With a delighted grin, connor curled his arms around Hank’s shoulders and leaned in, nudging Hank’s nose with his own. “Mr. Anderson,” he mused quietly, a note of wonder in his voice.

And under the Carribean sunlight in the salt-damp air of the summer, with a thousand new experiences awaiting him around every corner — Connor chose then to lean in, to take Hank’s lips in a soft, comfortable kiss like the kind they’d shared a thousand times before. And the kind they’d share for the rest of their lives.

**Author's Note:**

> Follow me on Twitter [ @AdmiralLiss](https://twitter.com/admiralliss) if you are so inclined!


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